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BOOKS BY KATHARINE HOLLAND BROWN 

PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


THE HALLO WELL PARTNERSHIP, iamo . net, 

THE MESSENGER. i6mo net, 

PHILIPPA AT HALCYON. Illustrated, nmo . 


$1.00 

•50 

$1.50 


THE 

HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 

















. 




















; 










* 
















































































\ 





























MARIAN COULD ONLY LIE BY THE FIRE AND TEASE EMPRESS 
AND FRET THE ENDLESS HOURS AWAY. 



THE HALLOWELL 
PARTNERSHIP 


BY 

KATHARINE HOLLAND BROWN 

*» 

AUTHOR OF “PHILIPPA AT HALCYON,” ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1912 



Copyright, 1912, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 

Published October, 1912 






» / t-0 

I 

©CIA327668 

/ 


f 

THE HOUSE OF THE BROWN THRUSH 




f 


The author wishes to acknowledge the cour- 
tesy of The Youth’s Companion , in permitting 
this publication of “ The Hallowell Partnership.” 

















* 


« 









































CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. When Slow-Coach Got His Fighting 

Chance . . . i 

II. Travellers Three 19 

III. Enter Mr. Finnegan 41 

IV. The Martin-Box Neighbors 62 

V. Goose-Grease and Diplomacy 79 

VI. The Contract’s Receiving Day . . . .101 

VII. The Coal and the Commodore . . . .124 

VIII. The Burgoo 141 

IX. The Magic Lead-Pencil 165 

X. Honored Guests 175 

XI. A Long Pull and a Strong Pull . . .195 

XII. Partners and Victories 216 



ILLUSTRATIONS 


Marian could only lie by the fire and tease Empress 

and fret the endless hours away . . . Frontispiece ' 

FACING 

PAGE 

On the edge of the opposite bank stood the quaintest, 

prettiest group that her eyes had ever beheld . 62 v 

“Well, Captain Lathrop ! ” Commodore McCloskey’s 

voice rang merciless and clear 138 * 

Marian was on her knees by his chair, clasping his 
cold hands in her own 234 



The Hallowell Partnership 


CHAPTER I 

WHEN SLOW-COACH GOT HIS FIGHTING 
CHANCE 

“Rod!” 

No answer. 

“Rod, what did that messenger boy bring? A 
special-delivery letter? Is it anything interest- 
ing? ” Marian Hallowell pushed Empress from 
her knee and turned on her pillows to look at 
Roderick, her brother, who sat absorbed and silent 
at his desk. 

Roderick did not move. Only Empress cocked 
a topaz eye, and rubbed her orange-tawny head 
against Marian’s chair. 

“Rod, why don’t you answer me?” Marian’s 
thin hands twitched. A sharp, fretted line deep- 
ened across her pretty, girlish forehead. It was 
not a pleasant line to see. And through her long, 
slow convalescence it had grown deeper every day. 


2 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


‘ ‘ Roderick Eallowell ! 9 ’ 

Roderick jumped. He turned his sober, kind 
face to her, then bent eagerly to the closely writ- 
ten letter in his hand. 

“Just a minute, Sis.” 

“Oh, very well, Slow-Coach!” Marian lay back, 
with a resigned sniff. She pulled Empress up by 
her silver collar, and lay petting the big, satiny 
Persian, who purred like a happy windmill against 
her cheek. Her tired eyes wandered restlessly 
about the dim, high-ceiled old room. Of all the 
dreary lodgings on Beacon Hill, surely Roderick 
had picked out the most forlorn! Still, the old 
place was quiet and comfortable. And, as Roder- 
ick had remarked, his rooms were amazingly in- 
expensive. That had been an important point; 
especially since Marian’s long, costly illness at 
college. That siege had been hard on Rod in many 
ways, she thought, with a mild twinge of self- 
reproach. In a way, those long weeks of suffering 
had come through her own fault. The college 
physician had warned her more than once that 
she was working and playing beyond her strength. 
Yet she felt extremely ill-used. 


HIS FIGHTING CHANCE 


3 


“It wasn’t nearly so bad, while I stayed in the 
infirmary at college. ” She sighed as she thought 
of her bright, airy room, the coming and going of 
the girls with their gay petting and sympathy, 
the roses and magazines and dainties. “ But here, 
in this tiresome, lonely place! How can I expect 
to get well!” 

Here she lay, shut up in Rod’s rooms, alone day 
after day, save for the vague, pottering kind- 
nesses of Rod’s vague old landlady. At night her 
brother would come home from his long day’s 
work as cub draughtsman in the city engineer’s 
office, too tired to talk. And Marian, forbidden by 
overstrained eyes to read, could only lie by the 
fire, and tease Empress, and fret the endless hours 
away. 

At last, with a deep breath, Rod laid down the 
letter. He pulled his chair beside her lounge. 

“ Tired, Sis?” 

“Not very. What was your letter, Rod?” 

“I’ll tell you pretty soon. Anything doing 
to-day?” 

“Isabel and Dorothy came in from Wellesley 
this morning, and brought me those lovely violets, 


4 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


and told me all about the Barn Swallows’ masque 
dance last night. And the doctor came this af- 
ternoon. ” 

“H’m. What did he say? ” 

Marian gloomed. 

“Just what he always says. ‘No more study 
this year. Out-door life. Bread and milk and 
sleep.’ Tiresome!” 

Roderick nodded. 

“Hard lines, Sister. And yet ” 

He dropped his sentence, and sat staring at the 
fire. 

“Rod! Are you never going to tell me what is 
in that letter?” 

“That letter? Oh, yes. Sure it won’t tire you 
to talk business?” 

“Of course not.” 

“Well, then — I have an offer of a new position. 
A splendid big one at that. ” 

“A new position? Truly?” Marian sat up, 
with brightening eyes. 

“ Yes. But I’m not sure I can swing it. ” Rod’s 
face clouded. “It demands a mighty competent 
engineer. ” 


HIS FIGHTING CHANCE 


5 


“Well! Aren’t you a competent engineer?” 
Marian gave his ear a mild tweak. “You’re al- 
ways underrating yourself, you old goose. Tell 
me about this. Quick. ” 

Rod’s thoughtful face grew grave. 

“It’s such a gorgeous chance that I can’t half 
believe in it,” he said, at length. “Through Pro- 
fessor Young, I’m offered an engineer’s billet with 
the Breckenridge Engineering and Construction 
Company. The Breckenridge Company is the 
largest and the best-known firm of engineers in the 
United States. Breckenridge himself is a wonder. 
I’d rather work under him than under any man I 
ever heard of. The work is a huge drainage con- 
tract in western Illinois. One hundred dollars 
a month and all my expenses. It’s a two-year 
job.” 

“A two-year position, out West!” Marian’s 
eyes shone. “The out-West part is dreadful, of 
course. But think of a hundred-dollar salary, 
after the sixty dollars that you have been drudging 
to earn ever since you left Tech! Read Professor 
Young’s letter aloud; do.” 

Roderick squirmed. 


6 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“Oh, you don’t want to hear it. It’s nothing 
much.” 

“ Yes I do, too. Read it, I say. Or — give it to 
me. There!” 

There was a short, lively scuffle. However, 
Marian had captured the letter with the first deft 
snatch; and Roderick could hardly take it from 
her shaky, triumphant hands by main force. He 
gave way, grumbling. 

“Professor Young always says a lot of things 
he doesn’t mean. He does it to brace a fellow up, 
that’s all.” 

“Very likely.” Marian’s eyes skimmed down 
the first page. 

“ ‘ — And as the company has asked me to recom- 
mend an engineer of whose work I can speak from 
first-hand knowledge, I have taken pleasure in re- 
ferring them to you. To be sure, you have had no 
experience in drainage work. But from what I 
recall of your record at Tech, your fundamental 
training leaves nothing to be desired. When it 
comes to handling the mass of rough-and-ready 
labor that the contract employs, I am confident 
that your father’s son will show the needed judg- 


HIS FIGHTING CHANCE 


7 


ment and authority. It is a splendid undertak- 
ing, this reclamation of waste land. It is heavy, 
responsible work, but it is a man’s work, straight 
through; and there is enough of chance in it to 
make it a man’s game, as well. If you can make 
good at this difficult opportunity, you will prove 
that you can make good at any piece of drainage 
engineering that comes your way. This is your 
fighting chance at success. And I expect to see 
you equal to its heaviest demands. Good luck 
to you!’ 

“That sounds just like Professor Young. And 
he means it. Every word.” Marian folded the 
letter carefully and gave it back to her brother. 
“Honestly, Rod, it does sound too good to be true. 
And think, what a frabjous time you can have 
during your vacations! You can run over to the 
Ozarks for your week-ends, and visit the Moores 
on their big fruit ranch, and go mountain-climb- 
ing ” 

Roderick chortled. 

“The Ozarks would be a trifling week-end jaunt 
of three hundred miles, old lady. Didn’t they 
teach you geography at Wellesley? As to moun- 


8 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


tains, that country is mostly pee-rary and swamp. 
That’s why this contract will be a two-year job, 
and a stiff job at that. ” 

“What does district drainage work mean, any- 
way?” 

“In district drainage, a lot of farmers and 
land-owners unite to form what is called, in law, 
a drainage district. A sort of mutual benefit 
association, you might call it. Then they tax 
themselves, and hire engineers and contractors to 
dig a huge system of ditches, and to build levees 
and dikes, to guard their fields against high 
water. You see, an Illinois farmer may own a 
thousand acres of the richest alluvial land. But 
if half that land is swamp, and the other half lies 
so low that the creeks near by may overflow and 
ruin his crops any day, then his thousand mellow 
acres aren’t much more use than ten acres of hard- 
scrabble here in New England. To be sure, he can 
cut his own ditches, and build his own levee, with- 
out consulting his neighbors. But the best way is 
for the whole country-side to unite and do the 
work on a royal scale. ” 

“How do they go about digging those ditches? 


HIS FIGHTING CHANCE 


9 


Where can they find laboring men to do the work, 
away out in the country?” 

“Why, you can't dig a forty-foot district canal 
by hand, Sis! That would be a thousand-year 
job. First, the district calls in an experienced 
engineer to look over the ground and make plans 
and estimates. Next, it employs a drainage con- 
tractor; say, the Breckenridge firm. This firm 
puts in three or four huge steam dredge-boats, a 
squad of dump-carts and scrapers, an army of la- 
borers, and a staff of engineers — including your 
eminent C. E. brother — to oversee the work. The 
dredges begin by digging a series of canals; one 
enormous one, called the main ditch, which runs 
the length of the district and empties into some 
large body of water; in this case, the Illinois 
River. Radiating from this big ditch, they cut 
a whole family of little ditches, called laterals. 
The main ditch is to carry off the bulk of water in 
case of freshets; while the laterals drain the in- 
dividual farms.” 

“It sounds like slow, costly work.” 

“It is. And you've heard only half of it, so far. 
Then, following the dredges, come the laborers, 


IO THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


with their teams and shovels and dump-carts. 
Along the banks of the ditch they build low 
brush-and-stone-work walls and fill them in with 
earth. These walls make a levee. So, even if the 
floods come, and your ditch runs bank-full, the 
levee will hold back the water and save the crops 
from ruin. Do you see?” 

“Ye-es. But it sounds rather tangled, Rod.” 

“It isn’t tangled at all. Look.” Rod’s pencil 
raced across the envelope. “Here’s a rough outline 
of this very contract. This squirmy line is Willow 
Creek. It is a broad, deep stream, and it runs for 
thirty crooked miles through the district, with 
swampy shores all the way. A dozen smaller 
creeks feed into it. They’re swampy, too. So 
you can see how much good rich farm-land is being 
kept idle. 



“This straight line is the main ditch, as planned. 
It will cut straight through the creek course, as the 
crow flies. Do you see, that means we’ll make a 
new channel for the whole stream? A straight, 
deep channel, too, not more than ten miles long, 


HIS FIGHTING CHANCE 


ii 


instead of the thirty twisted, wasteful miles of the 
old channel. The short lines at right angles to the 
main ditch represent the little ditches, or laterals. 
They’ll carry oh surplus water from the farm- 
lands: even from those that lie back from the 
creek, well out of harm’s way. ” 

“What will your work be, Rod?” 

“I’ll probably be given a night shift to boss. 
That is — if I take the job at all. The laborers are 
divided into two shifts, eleven hours each. The 
dredges have big search-lights, and puff along by 
night, regardless.” 

“How will you live?” 

“We engineers will be allotted a house-boat to 
ourselves, and we’ll mess together. The laborers 
live on a big boat called the quarter-boat. The 
firm furnishes food and bunks, tools, stationery, 
everything, even to overalls and quinine. ” 

“Quinine?” 

“Yes. Those Illinois swamps are chock-full 
of chills and fever. ” 

“Cheerful prospect! What if you get sick, 
Rod?” 

“Pooh. I never had a sick day in all my life. 


i2 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


However, the farm-houses, up on higher ground, 
are out of the malaria belt. If I get so Miss 
Nancy-fied that I can’t stay in the swamp, I can 
sleep at a farm-house. They say there are lots 
of pleasant people living down through that sec- 
tion. It is a beautiful country, too. I — I’d like 
it immensely, I imagine. ” 

“Of course you will. But what makes you 
speak so queerly, Rod? You’re certainly going to 
accept this splendid chance!” 

Rod’s dark, sober face settled into unflinching 
lines. 

“We’ll settle that later. What about you, 
Sis? If I go West, where will you go? How will 
you manage without me?” 

“ Oh, I’ll go up to Ipswich for the summer. Just 
as I always do. ” 

Rod considered. 

“That won’t answer, Marian. Now that the 
Comstocks have moved away, there is nobody 
there to look after you. And you’d be lonely, 
too.” 

“Well, then, I can go to Dublin. Cousin 
Evelyn will give me a corner in her cottage. ” 


HIS FIGHTING CHANCE 


13 


“But Cousin Evelyn sails for Norway in June.” 

“Dear me, I forgot! Then I’ll visit some of the 
girls. Isabel was teasing me this morning to come 
to their place at Beverly Farms for August. 
Though — I don’t know ” 

Rod’s serious young eyes met hers. A slow red 
mounted to his thatched black hair. 

“I don’t believe that would work, Sis. I hate 
to spoil your fun. But — we can’t afford that sort 
of thing, dear. ” 

“ I suppose not. To spend a month with Isabel 
and her mother, in that Tudor palace of theirs, full 
of man-servants, and maid-servants, and regiments 
of guests, and flocks and herds of automobiles, 
would cost me more, in new clothes alone, than 
the whole summer at Ipswich. But, Rod, where 
can I stay? I’d go cheerfully and camp on my 
relatives, only we haven’t a relative in the world, 
except Cousin Evelyn. Besides, I — I don’t see 
how I can ever stand it, anyway!” Her fretted 
voice broke, quivering. Mindful of Rod’s boyish 
hatred of sentiment, she gulped back the sob in 
her throat; but her weak hand clutched his sleeve. 
“There are only the two of us, Rod, and we’ve 


i 4 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


never been separated in all our lives. Not even 
for a single week. I — I can’t let you go away out 
there and leave me behind. ” 

Now, on nine occasions out of ten, Slow-Coach 
was Rod’s fitting title. This was the tenth time. 
He stooped over Marian, his black eyes flashing. 
His big hand caught her trembling fingers tight. 

“That will just do, Sis. Stop your forebodings, 
you precious old ’fraid-cat. I’m going to pack you 
up and take you right straight along. ” 

“Why, Roderick Thayer Hallowell!” 

Marian gasped. She stared up at her brother, 
wide-eyed. 

“Why, I couldn’t possibly go with you. It’s 
absurd. I daren’t even think of it. ” 

“Why not?” 

“Well, it’s such a queer, wild place. And it is 
so horribly far away. And I’m not strong enough 
for roughing it.” 

“Nonsense. Illinois isn’t a frontier. It’s only 
two days’ travel from Boston. As for roughing 
it, think of the Vermont farm-houses where we’ve 
stayed on fishing trips. Remember the smothery 
feather-beds, and the ice-cold pickled beets and pie 


HIS FIGHTING CHANCE 


i5 

for breakfast? Darkest Illinois can’t be worse 
than that. ” 

“N-no, I should hope not. But it will be so 
tedious and dull!” 

“ Didn’t the doctor order you to spend a dull 
summer? Didn’t he prescribe bread and milk 
and sleep?” 

“Rod, I won’t go. I can’t. I’d be perfectly 
miserable. There, now!” 

Roderick gave her a long, grave look. 

“Then I may as well write and decline the 
Breckenridge offer, Sis. For I’ll take you with 
me, or else stay here with you. That’s all. ” 

“Rod, you’re so contrary!” Marian’s lips 
quivered. “You must go West. I won’t have 
you stay here and drudge forever at office work. 
You must not throw away this splendid chance. 
It isn’t possible!” 

“It isn’t possible for me to do anything else, 
Sis.” Roderick’s stolid face settled into granite 
lines. Marian started at the new ring of author- 
ity in his voice. “Haven’t you just said that you 
couldn’t stand it to be left behind? Well, I — I’m 
in the same boat. I can’t go off and leave you, 


16 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


Sis. I won’t run the chances of your being sick, 
or lonely, while I’m a thousand miles away. So 
you’ll have to decide for us both. Either you go 
with me, or else I stay here and drudge forever, 
as you call it. For I’d rather drudge forever than 
face that separation. That’s all. Run along to 
bed now, that’s a good girl. You’ll need plenty 
of sleep if you are to start for Illinois with me next 
week. Good-night. ” 

“Well, but Rod ” 

“Run along, I say. Take Empress with you. 
I want to answer this letter, and she keeps purr- 
ing like a buzz-saw, and sharpening her claws on 
my shoes, till I can’t think straight. ” 

“But, Rod, you don’t understand!” Marian 
caught his arm. Her eyes brimmed with angry 
tears. “I don’t want to go West. I’ll hate it. 
I know I shall. I want to stay here, where I can 
be with my friends, where I can have a little fun. 
It’s not fair to make me go with you!” 

“Oh, I understand, all right.” Roderick’s eyes 
darkened. “You will not like the West. You’ll 
not be contented. I know that. But, remember, 
I’m taking this job for both of us, Sis. We’re 


HIS FIGHTING CHANCE 


i7 


partners, you know. I wish you could realize 
that. ” His voice grew a little wistful. “ If you’d 

be willing to play up ” 

“Oh, I’ll play up, of course.” Marian put her 
hands on his shoulders and gave him a pettish 
kiss. “And I’ll go West with you. Though I’d 
rather go to Moscow or the Sahara. Come, Em- 
press! Good-night, Rod. ” 

The door closed behind her quick, impatient 
step. Roderick sat down at his desk and opened 
his portfolio. He did not begin to write at once. 
Instead, he sat staring at the letter in his hand. 
He was a slow, plodding boy; he was not given 
to dreaming; but to-night, as he sat there, his 
sober young face lighted with eager fire. Certain 
phrases of that magical letter seemed to float and 
gleam before his eyes. 

— “‘A splendid undertaking . . . heavy, respon- 
sible work, but a man’s work, and a man’s game. 
. . . This is your fighting chance. If you can 
make good. . . . And I expect to see you equal to 
its heaviest demands. ’ ” 

Rod’s deep eyes kindled slowly. 

“I’ll make good, all right,” he muttered. His 


18 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


strong hand clinched on the folded sheet. “It’s 
my fighting chance. And if I can’t win out, with 
such an opportunity as this one — then I’ll take my 
name off the Engineering Record roster and buy me 
a pick and a shovel!” 


CHAPTER II 
TRAVELLERS THREE 

“ Ready, Marian? The Limited starts in thirty 
minutes. We haven’t a minute to spare.” 

“Y-yes.” Marian caught up her handbag and 
hurried into the cab. “Only my trunk keys — 
I’m not sure ” 

“Your trunk keys! You haven’t lost them, of 
all things!” 

“No. Here they are, safe in my bag. But 
Empress has been so frenzied I haven’t known 
which way to turn.” 

Poor insulted Empress, squirming madly in a 
wicker basket, glared at Rod, and lifted a wild, 
despairing yowl. 

“You don’t propose to leave Mount Vernon 
Street for the wilds of Illinois without a struggle, 
do you, Empress?” chuckled Rod. “Never you 
mind. You’ll forget your blue silk cushion and 
your minced steak and cream, and you’ll be chas- 
ing plebeian chipmunks in a week. Look at the 
19 


20 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


river, Marian. You won’t see it again in a long 
while.” 

Marian followed his glance. It was a silver hoar- 
frost morning. The sky shone a cloudless blue, 
the cold, delicious air sparkled, diamond-clear. 
Straight down Mount Vernon Street the exquisite 
little panel of the frozen Charles gleamed like a 
vista of fairyland. Marian stared at it a little 
wistfully. 

“It will all be very different out West, I sup- 
pose. I wonder if any Western river can be half 
as lovely, ” she pondered. 

Roderick did not answer. A sudden worried 
question stirred in his thought. Yes, the West 
would be “different.” Very different. 

“Maybe I’ve done the worst possible thing in 
dragging Marian along,” he thought. “But it’s 
too late to turn back now. I can only hope that 
she can stand the change, and that she’ll try to be 
patient and contented. ” 

Marian, on her part, was in high spirits. She 
had been shut up for so long that to find herself 
free, and starting on this trip to a new country, de- 
lighted her beyond bounds. At South Station, a 


TRAVELLERS THREE 


2 1 


crowd of her Wellesley chums stormed down upon 
her, in what Rod described later as a mass-play, 
laden with roses and chocolates and gay, loving 
farewells. Marian tore herself from their hands, 
half-laughing, half-crying with happy excitement. 

“Oh, Rod, I know we’re going to have the 
grandest trip, and the most beautiful good fort- 
unes that ever were!” she cried, as he put her 
carefully aboard the train. “But you aren’t one 
bit enthusiastic. You stodgy tortoise, why can’t 
you be pleased, too?” 

“I’m only too glad if you like the prospect, 
Sis, ” he answered soberly. 

Marian’s spirits soared even higher as the hours 
passed. Roderick grew as rapt as she when the 
train whirled through the winter glory of the 
Berkshires. Every slope rose folded in dazzling 
snow. Every tree, through mile on mile of forest, 
blazed in rainbow coats of icy mail. The wide 
rolling New York country was scarcely less beauti- 
ful. 

At Buffalo, the next morning, a special pleasure 
awaited them. A party of friends met them with 
a huge touring car, and carried them on a fly- 


22 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


ing trip to the ice-bridge at Niagara Falls. To 
Marian, every minute spelled enchantment. She 
forgot her dizzy head and her aching bones, and 
fairly exulted in the wild splendor of the blue ice- 
walled cataract. Roderick, on his part, was so 
absorbed by the marvellous engineering system 
of the great power-plant that for once he had no 
eyes nor thought for his sister, nor for any other 
matter. 

Their wonderful day closed with an elaborate 
dinner-party, given in their honor. Neither 
Marian nor Rod had ever been guests at so grand 
an affair. As they dashed to their train in their 
host’s beautiful limousine, Marian looked up from 
her bouquet of violets and orchids with laughing 
eyes. 

“If this is the West, Rod, I really think it will 
suit me very well!” 

Rod’s mouth twisted into a rueful grin. 

“Glad you enjoy it, Sis. Gloat over your lux- 
ury while you may. You’ll find yourself swept 
out of the limousine zone all too soon. By this 
time next week you’ll be thankful for a spring 
wagon. ” 


TRAVELLERS THREE 


23 


By the next morning, Marian’s spirits began to 
flag. All day they travelled in fog and rain, down 
through a flat, dun country. Not a gleam of snow 
lightened those desolate muddy plains. There 
seemed no end to that sodden prairie, that gray 
mist-blotted sky. Marian grew more lonely and 
unhappy with every hour. She struggled to be 
good-humored for Roderick’s sake. But she grew 
terribly tired; and it was a very white-faced 
girl who clung to Roderick’s arm as their train 
rolled into the great, clanging terminal at Saint 
Louis. 

Roderick hurried her to a hotel. It seemed to 
her that she had scarcely dropped asleep before 
Rod’s voice sounded at the door. 

“ Sorry, Sis, but we’ll have to start right away. 
It’s nearly eight o’clock. ” 

“Oh, Rod, I’m so tired! Please let’s take a 
later train.” 

“There isn’t any later train, dear. There isn’t 
any train at all. We’re going up-river on a little 
steamer that is towing a barge-load of coal to our 
camp. That’s the only way to reach the place. 
There is no railroad anywhere near. There won’t 


24 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


be another steamer going up for days. It’s a 
shame to haul you out, but it can’t be helped. ” 

An hour later, they picked their way down the 
wet, slippery stones of the levee to where the 
Lucy Lee , a tiny flat-bottomed “stern- wheeler,” 
puffed and snorted, awaiting them. As they 
crossed the gang-plank, the pilot rang the big 
warning bell. Immediately their little craft nosed 
its way shivering along the ranks of moored 
packets, and rocked out into mid-channel. 

Marian peered back, but she could see nothing 
of the city. A thick icy fog hung everywhere, 
shrouding even the tall warehouses at the river’s 
edge, and drifting in great, gray clouds over the 
bridges. 

“The river is still thick with floating ice,” said 
the captain, at her elbow. “The Lucy is the first 
steam-boat to dare her luck, trying to go up-stream, 
since the up-river ice gorge let go. But we’ll 
make it all right. It’s a pretty chancy trip, yet 
it’s not as dangerous as you’d think. ” 

Marian twinkled. “It looks chancy enough to 
me,” she confessed. She looked out at the broad, 
turbid stream. Here and there a black patch 


TRAVELLERS THREE 


25 


marked a drifting ice cake, covered with brush, 
swept down from some flooded woodland. Through 
the mist she caught glimpses of high, muddy banks, 
a group of sooty factories, a gray, murky sky. 

“I don’t see much charm to the Mississippi, 
Rod. Is this all there is to it? Just yellow, tum- 
bling water, and mud, and fog? ” 

“It isn’t a beautiful stream, that’s a fact,” 
admitted Rod. Yet his eyes sparkled. He was 
growing more flushed and alert with every turn of 
the wheels that brought him nearer to his coveted 
work, his man’s game. “This is too raw and cold 
for you, Marian. Come into the cabin, and I’ll 
fix you all snug by the fire. ” 

“The cabin is so stuffy and horrid,” fretted 
Marian. Yet she added, “But it’s the cunningest 
place I ever dreamed of. It’s like a miniature 
museum. ” 

“A museum? A junk-shop, I’d call it,” Rod 
chuckled, as he settled her into the big red- 
cushioned rocker, before the roaring cannon stove. 

The tight little room was crowded with solemn 
black-walnut cabinets, full of shells and arrow- 
heads, and hung thick with quaint, high-colored 


26 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


old pictures. Languishing ladies in chignons and 
crinoline gazed upon lordly gentlemen in tall 
stocks and gorgeous waistcoats; “ Summer Pros- 
pects/’ in vivid chromos fronted “Snow Scenes/’ 
made realistic with much powdered isinglass. 
Crowning all, rose a tall, cupid-wreathed gilt mir- 
ror, surmounted by a stern stuffed eagle, who 
glared down fiercely from two yellow glass eyes. 
His mighty wings spread above the mirror, a bit 
moth-eaten, but still terrifying. 

“Look, Empress. Don’t you want to catch 
that nice birdie?” 

Poor bewildered Empress glared at the big bird, 
and sidled, back erect, wrathfully sissing, under a 
chair. Travel had no charms for Empress. 

“Will you look at that old yellowed pilot’s 
map and certificate in the acorn frame? ‘1857!’” 
chuckled Rod. “And the red-and-blue worsted 
motto hung above it: ‘Home, Sweet Home!’ 
I’ll wager Grandma Noah did that worsted-work.” 

“Not Grandma Noah, but Grandma McClos- 
key,” laughed the captain. “She was the nicest 
old lady you ever laid eyes on. She used to live 
on the boat and cook for us, till the rheumatism 


TRAVELLERS THREE 


27 

forced her to live ashore. Her husband is old 
Commodore McCloskey; so everybody calls him. 
He has been a pilot on the Mississippi ever since 
the day he got that certificate, yonder. He’s a 
character, mind that. He shot that eagle in ’58, 
and he has carried it around with him ever since, 
to every steamer that he has piloted. You must 
go up to the pilot-house after a bit and make him 
a visit. He’s worth knowing.” 

“I think I’d like to go up to the pilot-house 
right aw#y, Rod. It is so close and hot down 
here.” 

Obediently Rod gathered up her rugs and cush- 
ions. Carefully he and the captain helped her up 
the swaying corkscrew stairs, across the dizzy, 
rain-swept hurricane deck, then up the still nar- 
rower, more twisty flight that ended at the door of 
the high glass-walled box, perched like a bird- 
cage, away forward. 

Inside that box stood a large wooden wheel, and 
a small, twinkling, white-bearded old gentleman, 
who looked for all the world like a Santa Claus 
masquerading in yellow oilskins. 

“Ask him real pretty,” cautioned the captain. 


28 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“He thinks he runs this boat, and everybody 
aboard her. He does, too, for a fact. ” 

With much ceremony Roderick rapped at the 
glass door, and asked permission for his sister to 
enter. With grand aplomb the little old gentle- 
man rose from his wheel and ushered her up the 
steps. 

“’Tis for fifty-four years that I and me pilot- 
house have been honored by the ladies’ visits,” 
quoth he, with a stately bow. “Ye’ll sit here, 
behind the wheel, and watch me swing herself up 
the river? Sure, ’tis a ticklish voyage, wid the 
river so full of floatin’ ice. I shall be glad of yer 
gracious presence, ma’am. It will bring me good 
luck in me steerin’.” 

Marian’s eyes danced. She fitted herself neatly 
into the cushioned bench against the wall. The 
pilot-house was a bird-cage, indeed, hardly eight 
feet square. The great wheel, swinging in its 
high frame, took up a third of the space; a huge 
cast-iron stove filled one comer. For the rest, 
Marian felt as if she had stepped inside one of the 
curio-cabinets in the cabin below; for every 
inch of wall space in the bird-cage was festooned 


TRAVELLERS THREE 


29 


with mementoes of every sort. A string of 
beautiful wampum, all polished elks’ teeth and un- 
cut green turquoise; shell baskets, and strings of 
buckeyes; a four-foot diamond-back rattlesnake’s 
skin, beautiful and uncanny, the bunch of five 
rattles tied to the tail. Close beside the glitter- 
ing skin hung even an odder treasure-trove: a 
small white kid glove, quaintly embroidered in 
faded pink-and-blue forget-me-nots. 

“ Great-Aunt Emily had some embroidered 
gloves like that in her trousseau, ” thought Marian. 
“I do wonder ” 

“Ye’re lookin’ at me keepsakes?” The pilot 
sighted up-stream, then turned, beaming. “May- 
be it will pass the time like for me to tell ye of 
them. There is not one but stands for an advent- 
ure. That wampum was given to me by Chief 
Ogalalla; a famous Sioux warrior, he was. ’Twas 
back in sixty-wan, and the string was the worth of 
two ponies in thim days. Three of me mates an’ 
meself was prospectin’ down in western Nebraska. 
There came a great blizzard, and Chief Ogalalla 
and three of his men rode up to our camp, and we 
took them in for the night. ” 


3 o THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“ And he gave you the wampum in pay- 
ment ?” 

“Payment? Never! A man never paid for 
food nor shelter on the plains. No more than for 
the air he breathed. ’Twas gratitude. For Chief 
Ogalalla had a ragin’ toothache, and I cured it for 
him. Made him a poultice of red pepper. ” 

“Mercy! I should think that would hurt worse 
than any toothache!” 

“Maybe it did, ma’am. But at least it dis- 
thracted his attention from the tooth itself. That 
rattlesnake, I kilt in a swamp near Vicksburg. 
Me and me wife was young then, and we’d bor- 
rowed a skiff, an’ rowed out to hunt pond-lilies. 
Mary would go in the bog, walkin’ on the big tufts 
of rushes. Her little feet were that light she 
didn’t sink at all. But the first thing I heard she 
gave a little squeal, an’ there she stood, perched 
on a tuft, and not three feet away, curled up on a 
log, was that great shinin’ serpent. Just rockin’ 
himself easy, he was, makin’ ready to strike. An’ 
strike he would. Only” — the small twinkling face 
grew grim — “only I struck first.” 

Marian shivered. 


TRAVELLERS THREE 


3i 


“ And the little white glove?” 

The old pilot beamed. 

“Sure, I hoped ye’d notice that, miss. That 
glove points to the proud day f’r me! It was the 
summer of ’60. I was pilotin’ the Annie Kilburn , 
a grand large packet, down to Saint Louis. We 
had a wonderful party aboard her. ’Twas just 
the beginnin’ of war times, an’ ’twould be like 
readin’ a history book aloud to tell ye their names. 
Did ever ye hear of the Little Giant?” 

“Of Stephen A. Douglas, the famous orator? 
Why, yes, to be sure. Was he aboard?” 

“Yes. A fine, pleasant-spoke gentleman he was, 
too. But ’tis not the Little Giant that this story 
is about. ’Twas his wife. Ye’ve heard of her, 
sure? Ah, but I wish you could have seen her 
when she came trippin’ up the steps of me pilot- 
house and passed the time of day with me, so 
sweet and friendly. Afterward they told me 
what a great lady she was. Though I could see 
that for meself, she was that gentle, and her voice 
so quiet and low, and her look so sweet and kind. 
I was showin’ her about, an’ feelin’ terrible proud, 
an’ fussy, an’ excited. I was a young felly then, 


32 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 

and it took no more than her word an’ her smile 
to turn me foolish head. An’ I was showin’ her 
how to handle the wheel, and by some mischance, 
didn’t I catch me blunderin’ hand in the frame, an’ 
give it a wrench that near broke every bone! I 
couldn’t leave the wheel till the first mate should 
come to take me place. And Madame Douglas 
was that distressed, you’d think it was her own 
hand that she was grievin’ over. She would tear 
her lace handkerchief into strips, and bind up the 
cut, and then what does she do but take her white 
glove, an’ twist it round the fingers, so’s to keep 
them from the air, till I could find time to bandage 
them. I said not a word. But the minute her 
silks an’ laces went trailin’ down the hurricane 
ladder, I jerked off that glove an’ folded it in my 
wallet. An’ there it stayed till I could have that 
frame made for it. And in that frame I’ve car- 
ried it ever since, all these long years. 

“Those were the grand days, sure,” he added, 
wistfully. “Before the war, we pilots were the 
lords of the river. I had me a pair of varnished 
boots, an’ tight striped trousers, an’ a grand shiny 
stove-pipe hat, an’ I wouldn’t have called the 


TRAVELLERS THREE 


33 


king me uncle. It’s sad times for the river, now- 
adays.” He looked away up the broad, tum- 
bling yellow stream. “Look at her, will ye! No 
river at all, she is, wid her roily yellow water, an' 
her poor miry banks, an’ her bluffs, all washed 
away to shiftin' sand. But wasn't she the grand 
stream entirely, before the war!” 

Marian looked at the framed river-chart above 
the wheel. She tried to read its puzzle of tangled 
lines. The old man sniffed. 

“Don’t waste yer time wid that gimcrack, miss. 
Steer by it? Never ! ” He shrugged his shoulders 
loftily. “It hangs there by government request, 
so I tolerate it to please the Department. I know 
this river by heart, every inch. I could steer this 
boat from Natchez to Saint Paul wid me eyes 
shut, the blackest night that ever blew!” 

Marian dimpled at his majestic tone. 

“Will you show me how to steer? I've always 
been curious as to how it is done. ” 

“Certain I will.” 

Keenly interested, Marian gripped the hand- 
holds, and turned the heavy wheel back and forth 
as he directed. Suddenly her grasp loosened. 


34 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


Down the stream, straight toward the boat, 
drifted a rolling black mass. 

“ Mercy, what is that? It looks like a whole 
forest of logs. It’s rolling right toward us!” 

“Ye’re right. ’Tis a raft that’s broke adrift. 
But we have time to dodge, be sure. Watch 
now. ” 

His right hand grasped the wheel. His left 
seized the bell-cord. Three sharp toots signalled 
the engine-room for full head of steam. In- 
stantly the Lucy jarred under Marian’s feet with 
the sudden heavy force of doubled power. Slowly 
the steam-boat swung out of her course, in a long 
westward curve. Past her, the nearest logs not 
fifty feet away, the great, grinding mass of tree- 
trunks rolled and tumbled by, sweeping on toward 
the Gulf. 

“’Tis handy that we met those gintlemen by 
daylight,” remarked the pilot, cheerfully. “For 
one log alone would foul our paddle-wheels and 
give us a bad shaking up. And should all that 
Donnybrook Fair come stormin’ into us by night, 
we’d go to the bottom before ye could say Jack 
Robinson. ” 


TRAVELLERS THREE 


35 


Marian’s eyes narrowed. She stared at the dusk 
stormy yellow river, the blank inhospitable shores. 
She was not by any means a coward. But she 
could not resist asking one question. 

“Do we go on up-river after nightfall? Or do 
we stop at some landing?” 

“There’s no landing between here and 'Grafton, 
at the mouth of the Illinois River. We’ll have to 
tie up along shore, I’m thinkin’.” The old man 
spoke grudgingly. “If I was runnin’ her meself, 
’tis little we’d stop for the night. But the cap- 
tain thinks different. He’s young and notional. 
Tie up over night we must, says he. But ’tis 
all nonsense. Chicken-hearted, I’d call it, that’s 
all.” 

Marian laughed to herself. Inwardly she was 
grateful for the captain’s chicken-heartedness. 

A loud gong sounded from below. The pilot 
nodded. 

“Yon’s your supper-bell, miss. I thank ye 
kindly for the pleasure of yer company. I shall 
be honored if ye choose to come again. And 
soon. ” 

Marian made her way down to the cabin 


36 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


through the stormy dusk. The little room was 
warm and brightly lighted; the captain’s negro 
boy was just placing huge smoking-hot platters of 
perfectly cooked fish and steak upon the clean 
oil-cloth table. They gathered around it, an odd 
company. Marian and Roderick, the captain, 
the Lucy's engineer, a pleasant, boyish fellow, 
painfully embarrassed and redolent of hot oil and 
machinery; and two young dredge-runners, on 
their way, like Rod, to the Breckenridge contract. 
Save the captain and Rod, they gobbled bashfully, 
and fled at the earliest possible moment. Rod 
and the captain were talking of the contract and 
of its prospects. Marian trifled with her massive 
hot biscuit, and listened indifferently. 

“I hope your coming on the work may change 
its luck, Mr. Hallowell,” observed the captain. 
“For that contract has struggled with mighty 
serious difficulties, so far. Breckenridge himself is 
a superb engineer; but of course he cannot stay on 
the ground. He has a dozen equally important 
contracts to oversee. His engineers are all well 
enough, but somehow they don’t seem to make 
things go. Carlisle is the chief. He is a good 


TRAVELLERS THREE 


37 


engineer and a good fellow, but he is so nearly 
dead with malaria that he can’t do two hours’ work 
in a week. Burford, his aid, is a young Southerner, 
a fine chap, but — well, a bit hot-headed. You 
know our Northern labor won’t stand for much of 
that. Then there is Marvin, who is third in 
charge. But as for Marvin” — he stopped, with 
a queer short laugh — “as for Marvin, the least 
said the soonest mended. He’s a cub engineer, 
they call him; a grizzly cub at that. He may 
come out all right, with time. You can see for 
yourself that you haven’t any soft job. With a 
force of two hundred laborers, marooned in a 
swamp seven miles from nowhere, not even a rail- 
road in the county; with half the land-owners 
protesting against their assessments, and refusing 
to pay up; with your head engineer sick, and 
your coal shipments held up by high water — 
no, you won’t find your place an easy one, mind 
that. ” 

“I’m not doing any worrying. ” Rod’s jaw set. 
His dark face glowed. Marian looked at him, a 
little jealously. His whole heart and thought 
were swinging away to this work, now opening 


38 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 

before him. This was his man’s share in labor, 
and he was eager to cope with its sternest de- 
mands. 

“Well, it’s a good thing you have the pluck to 
face it. You will need all the pluck you’ve got, 
and then some.” The captain paced restlessly 
up and down the narrow room. “ Wonder why we 
don’t slow down. We must be running a full 
twelve miles an hour. Altogether too fast, when 
we’re towing a barge. And it is pitch dark. ” 

He stooped to the engine-room speaking-tube. 
“Hi, Smith! Why are you carrying so much 
steam? I want to put her inshore. ” 

A muffled voice rose from the engine-room. 

“All right, sir. But McCloskey, he just rung 
for full speed ahead.” 

“He did? That’s McCloskey, all over. The 
old rascal! He has set his heart on making Graf- 
ton Landing to-night, instead of tying up along- 
shore. Hear that? He’s making that old wheel 
jump. To be sure, he knows the river channel 
like a book. But, even with double search-lights, 
no man living can see ice-cakes and brush far 
enough ahead to dodge them.” 


TRAVELLERS THREE 


39 


“Let’s take a look on deck,” suggested Rod. 

Once outside the warm, cheerful cabin, the night 
wind swept down on them, a driving, freezing 
blast. The little steamer fairly raced through the 
water. Her deck boards quivered; the boom of 
the heavy engine throbbed under their feet. 

“Thickest night I’ve seen in a year,” growled 
the captain. “I say, McCloskey! Slow down, 
and let’s put her inshore. This is too dangerous 
to suit me. ” 

No reply. The boat fled pitching on. 

“ McCloskey /” 

At last there came a faint hail. 

“Yes, captain! What’s yer pleasure, sir?” 

“ The old rascal ! He’s trying to show off. He’s 
put his deaf ear to the tube, I’ll be bound. Best 
go inside, Miss Hallowell, this wind is full of 
sleet. McCloskey! Head her inshore, I say.” 

On rushed the Lucy. Her course did not change 
a hair’s breadth. 

“No wonder they call him Commodore Mc- 
Closkey!” Rod whispered wickedly. “Even the 
captain has to yield to him. ” 

“McCloskey!” The captain’s voice was gruff 


4 o THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 

with anger. “Head her inshore I Unless you’ 

trying to kill the boat ” 

Crash! 

The captain’s sentence was never finished. 


CHAPTER III 


ENTER MR. FINNEGAN 

With that crash the floor shot from under their 
feet. Stumbling and clutching, the three, Marian, 
Rod, and the captain, pitched across the deck and 
landed in a heap against the rail. The lighted 
cabin seemed to rear straight up from the deck 
and lunge toward them. There was an uproar of 
shouts, a hideous pounding of machinery. Marian 
shut her eyes. 

Then, with a second deafening crash, the 
steamer righted herself; and, thrown like three 
helpless ninepins, Marian, Rod, and the captain 
reeled back from the rail and found themselves, 
bumped and dizzy, tangled in a heap of freight 
and canvas. Rod was the first on his feet. He 
snatched Marian up, with a groan. 

“ Sister! Are you hurt? Tell me, quick.” 

“ Nonsense, no. ” Marian struggled up, bruised 
and trembling. “I whacked my head on the rail, 

that’s all. What has happened?” 

41 


42 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“We’ve struck another bunch of runaway logs. 
They’ve fouled our wheel,” shouted the captain. 
“Put this life-preserver on your sister. Swing out 
the yawl, boys!” For the deck crew was already 
scrambling up the stairs. “Here, where’s Smith? ” 

“He’s below, sir, stayin’ by the boiler. The 
logs struck us for’ard the gangway. She’s got a 
hole stove in her that you could drive an ice-wagon 
through, ” answered a fireman. “ Smith says, head 
her inshore. Maybe you can beach her before she 
goes clean under.” 

The captain groaned. 

“ Her first trip for the year ! The smartest little 
boat on the river! McCloskey!” he shouted 
angrily up the tube. “Head her inshore, before 
she’s swamped. You hear that, I reckon? ” 

“Ay, ay, sir.” It was a very meek voice down 
the tube. 

Very slowly the Lucy swung about. Creaking 
and groaning, she headed through the darkness 
for the darker line of willows that masked the 
Illinois shore. 

For a minute, Roderick and Marian stood to- 
gether under the swaying lantern, too dazed by 


ENTER MR. FINNEGAN 


43 

excitement to move. On Marian’s forehead a 
cheerful blue bump had begun to rise; while 
Rod’s cheek-bone displayed an ugly bruise. Sud- 
denly Marian spoke. 

“Rod! Where is Empress! She will be fright- 
ened to death. We must take her into the yawl 
with us.” 

The young fireman turned. 

“That grand big cat of yours, ma’am? You’ll 
never coax a cat into an open boat. They’ll die 
first. But have no fear. We are not a hundred 
yards from shore, and in shallow water at that. 
’Tis a pity the Lucy is hurt, but it’s fortunate for 
us that she can limp ashore. ” 

Marian felt a little foolish. She pulled off the 
cork jacket which Rod had tied over her shoul- 
ders. 

“We aren’t shipwrecked after all, Rod. We’re 
worse frightened than hurt. ” 

“I’m not so sure of that. Keep that life-pre- 
server on, Sis.” 

The Lucy was blundering pluckily toward shore. 
But the deck jarred with the thud and rattle of 
thrashing machinery, and at every forward plunge 


44 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


the boat pitched until it seemed as if the next fling 
would surely capsize her. 

Rod peered into the darkness. 

“We’ll make the shore, I do believe. Shall I 
leave you long enough to get our bags and Em- 
press?” 

“Oh, I’ll go too. You’ll need me to pacify 
Empress. She will be panic-stricken. ” 

Poor Empress was panic-stricken, indeed. The 
little cabin was a chaos. The shock of the colli- 
sion had overturned every piece of furniture. 
Even the wall cabinets were upset, and their shells 
and arrowheads were scattered far and wide. The 
beautiful old-time crystal chandeliers were in 
splinters. Worst, the big gilt mirror lay on the 
floor, smashed to atoms. Only one object in all 
that cabin held its place : the stuffed eagle. And 
high on the eagle’s outspread wing, crouched like 
a panther, snarling and spitting, her every silky 
hair furiously on end, clung poor, terrified Em- 
press. Rod exploded. 

“You made friends with the nice bird, after 
all, didn’t you, Empress! Come on down, kitty. 
Let me put a life-preserver on you too. ” 


ENTER MR. FINNEGAN 


45 


No life-preservers for Empress! Marian coaxed 
and called in vain. She merely dug her claws 
into the eagle’s back and growled indignant 
refusal. 

“ Let’s go back on deck, Sis. She’ll calm down 
presently. ” 

The Lucy was now working inshore with in- 
creasing speed. But, as they stepped on deck, 
the boat careened suddenly, then stopped, with 
a sickening jolt. 

“Never mind, miss,” the young fireman 
quickly assured her. “ She has struck a sand-bar, 
and there she’ll stick, I fear. But we are safe 
enough, for the water is barely six feet deep. 
We’ll have to anchor here for the night, but don’t 
be nervous. She can’t sink very far in six feet of 
water. ” 

“I suppose not.” Yet Marian’s teeth chat- 
tered. Inwardly she sympathized with Empress. 
What a comfort it would be to climb the stuffed 
eagle and perch there, well out of reach of even 
six feet of black icy water! 

The captain was still more reassuring. 

“Well, we’re lucky that we’ve brought her this 


46 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


near shore. ” He wiped his forehead with a rather 
unsteady hand. “Ten minutes ago my heart was 
in my mouth. I thought sure she’d sink in mid- 
stream. You’re perfectly safe now, Miss Hallo- 
well. Better go to your state-room and get some 
sleep. ” 

“Yes, the Lucy will rest still as a church now,” 
said the young fireman, with a heartening chuckle. 
“She’s hard aground. Though that’s no thanks 
to our pilot. I say, McCloskey ! Where were you 
trying to steer us? Into a lumber-yard?” 

Down the hurricane deck came Mr. McCloskey, 
white beard waving, eyes twinkling, jaunty and 
serene as a May morning. 

“This little incident is no fault of me steerin’,” 
said he, with delightful unconcern. “’Twas the 
carelessness of thim raftsmen, letting their logs 
get away, no less. Sure, captain dear, I’d sue 
them for damages.” 

“I’ll be more likely to sue you for running full 
speed after dark, against orders,” muttered the 
captain. Then he laughed. “I ought to put you 
in irons. But the man doesn’t live that can hold 
a grudge against you, McCloskey. Take hold 


ENTER MR. FINNEGAN 


47 


now, boys. Bank your fires, then well patch her 
up as best we can for the night. ” 

Marian went to her stateroom, but not to sleep. 
There was little sleep that night for anybody. In 
spite of protecting sand-bar and anchor, the boat 
careened wretchedly. Strange groans and shrieks 
rose from the engine-room; hurrying footsteps 
came and went through the narrow gangway. 
And the rush of the swift current, the bump of 
ice-cakes, and the sweep of floating brush past her 
window kept her aroused and trembling. It 
seemed years before the tiny window grew gray 
with dawn. 

The captain’s voice reached her ears. 

“No, the Lucy isn’t damaged as badly as we 
thought. But it will take us two days of bulk- 
heading before we dare go on. You’d best take 
your sister up to the camp in my launch. It is 
at your service.” 

“That’s good news!” sighed Marian. “Any- 
thing to escape from this sinking ship. I don’t 
like playing Casabianca one bit. ” 

She swallowed the hot coffee and corn bread 
which the captain’s boy brought to her door, and 


48 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


hurried on deck. Their embarking was highly 
exciting; for poor Empress, having been coaxed 
with difficulty from the eagle’s roost, where she 
had spent the night, promptly lost her head at 
sight of the water and fled shrieking to the pilot- 
house. Rod, the pilot, the engineer, and the 
young fireman together hunted her from her fast- 
ness, and, after a wild chase, returned scratched 
but victorious, with Empress raging in a gunny- 
sack. 

“Best keep her there till you’re ashore, miss,” 
laughed the young fireman. And Marian took 
the precaution to tie the mouth of the sack with 
double knots. 

Up-stream puffed the launch, past Grafton 
Landing into the narrower but clearer current of 
the Illinois River. Now the black mud banks 
rose into bluffs and wooded hills. Here and there 
a marshy backwater showed a faint tinge of early 
green. But there was not a village in sight; not 
even a solitary farm-house. Hour after hour they 
steamed slowly up the dull river, beneath the gray 
mist-hooded sky. Marian looked resentfully at 
her brother. He had unrolled a portfolio of blue- 


ENTER MR. FINNEGAN 


49 


prints, and sat over them, as absorbed and as in- 
different to the cold and discomfort as if he were 
sitting at his own desk at home. 

“He’s so rapt over his miserable old contract 
that he is not giving me one thought,” Marian 
sulked to herself. “I just wish that I had put my 
foot down, and had refused, flatly, to come with 
him. If I had dreamed the West would be like 
this!” 

Presently the launch whistled. An answering 
whistle came from up-stream. Rod dropped his 
blue-prints with a shout. 

“Look, Marian. There is the contract camp, 
the whole plant! See, straight ahead!” 

Marian stared. There was not a house to be 
seen; but high on the right bank stood an army 
of tents; and below, moored close to shore, lay 
, a whole village of boats, strung in long double file. 
Midway stood a gigantic steam-dredge. Its vivid 
red-painted machinery reared high on its black, 
oil-soaked platform, its strange sprawling crane 
spread its iron wings, like the pinions of some vast 
ungainly bird of prey. Around it were ranked 
several flat-boats, a trim steam-launch, a whole 


50 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 

regiment of house-boats. Rod’s eyes sparkled. 
He drew a sharp breath. 

“This is my job, all right. Isn’t it sumptuous, 
Marian! Will you look at that dredge! Isn’t 
she magnificent? So is the whole outfit, barges 
and all. That’s worth walking from Boston to 
see!” 

“Is it?” Marian choked back the vicious little 
retort. “Well, I’d be willing to walk back to 
Boston — to get away!” 

“Ahoy the launch! This is Mr. Hallowell?” 
A tall, haggard man in oilskins and hip boots came 
striding across the dredge. “Glad to see you, sir. 
We hoped that you would arrive to-day. I am 
Carlisle, the engineer in charge. ” He leaned over 
the rail to give Rod’s hand a friendly grip. He 
spoke with a dry, formal manner, yet his lean yel- 
low face was full of kindly interest. “And this is 
your sister, Miss Hallowell? You have come to a 
rather forlorn summer resort, Miss Hallowell, but 
we will do our best to make it endurable for 
you. ” 

Roderick, red with pleasure, stood up to greet 
his new chief. Behind Mr. Carlisle towered a 


ENTER MR. FINNEGAN 


5i 


broad-shouldered, heavily built young man, in 
very muddy khaki and leggings, his blond wind- 
burnt face shining with a hospitable grin. 

“This is our Mr. Burford, Mr. Hallowell. At 
present, you and he will superintend the night 
shifts. ” 

Mr. Burford gave Roderick a hearty handshake, 
and beamed upon Marian. 

“Mr. Burford will be particularly glad to wel- 
come you, Miss Hallowed, on Mrs. Burford’s ac- 
count. She has been dving here on the work for 
several months, the only lady who has graced our 
camp until to-day. I know that she wid be eager 
for your companionship. ” 

Mr. Burford grew fairly radiant. 

“ Sally Lou wid be wild when she learns that you 
are ready here,” he declared eagerly, in his deep 
southern drawl. “She has talked of your coming 
every minute since the news came that we might 
hope to have you with us. You wid find us a 
mighty primitive set, but you and Sally Lou can 
have plenty of fun together, I know. I’d like to 
bring her and the kiddies to see you as soon as you 
feel equal to receiving us. ” 


52 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 

“Thank you very much.” Marian tried her 
best to be gracious and friendly. But she was so 
tired that young Burford’s broad smiling face 
seemed to blur and waver through a thickening 
mist. “I’m sure I shall be charmed ” 

“Hi, there!” An angry shout broke upon her 
words. “Mr. Carlisle, will you look here! That 
foreman of yours has gone off with my skiff again. 
If I’m obliged to share my boat with your impu- 
dent riffraff ” 

“Mr. Marvin, will you kindly come here a 
moment?” The chief’s voice did not lose its even 
tone; but his heavy brows narrowed. “I wish 
you to meet Mr. Hallowell, who is your and Mr. 
Burford’s new associate. Miss Hallowell, may I 
present Mr. Marvin?” 

Marian bowed and looked curiously at the tall, 
dark-featured young man who shuffled forward. 
She remembered the captain’s terse description — 
“a cub engineer, and a grizzly cub at that. ” Mr. 
Marvin certainly acted the part. He barely 
nodded to her and to Roderick, then clamored on 
with his grievance. 

“You know I’ve told the men time and again 


ENTER MR. FINNEGAN 


53 


to leave my boat alone. But your foreman bor- 
rows my launch whenever he takes the notion, 
and leaves her half-swamped, or high and dry, as 
he chooses. If you won’t jack him up for it, I 
will. I’ll not tolerate ” 

“I’ll take that matter up later, Mr. Marvin.” 
Marvin’s sullen face reddened at the tone in his 
chief’s voice. “Mr. Hallowell, I have found 
lodgings for your sister three miles up the canal, 
at the Gates farm. Mr. Burford will take you to 
Gates’s Landing, thence you will drive to the farm- 
house. Your own quarters will be on the engi- 
neers’ house-boat, and we shall hope to see you 
here for dinner to-night. Good-by, Miss Hallo- 
well. I hope that Mrs. Gates will do everything 
to make you comfortable.” 

The launch puffed away up the narrow muddy 
canal. It was a. straight, deep stream of brown 
water, barely forty feet wide. Its banks were a 
high-piled mass of mire and clay, for the levee- 
builders had not yet begun work. Beyond rose 
clumps of leafless trees. Then, far as eye could 
see, muddy fields and gray swampy meadows. 
Rod gazed, radiant. 


54 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“ Isn’t it splendid, Marian! The finest equip- 
ment I ever dreamed of. Look at those barges ! ” 

“Those horrid flat-boats heaped with coal?” 

“Yes. Think of the yardage record we’re mak- 
ing. Five thousand yards a day!” 

Marian rubbed her aching eyes. 

“I don’t know a yardage record from a bushel 
basket,” she sighed. “What is that queer box- 
shaped red boat, set on a floating platform?” 

“That is the engineers’ house-boat, where your 
brother is to live. Mayn’t we take you aboard to 
see?” urged Burford. 

Marian stepped on the narrow platform and 
peered into the cubby-hole state-rooms and the 
clean, scoured mess-room. She was too tired to 
be really interested. 

“And that funny, grass-green cabin, set on 
wooden stilts, up that little hill — that play- 
house?” 

Burford laughed. 

“That’s my play-house. Sally Lou insists on 
living right here, so that she and the babies and 
Mammy Easter can keep a watchful eye on me. 
You and Sally Lou will be regular chums, I know. 


ENTER MR. FINNEGAN 


55 


She is not more than a year or so older than you 
are, and it has been pretty rough on her to leave 
her home and come down here. But she says she 
doesn’t care; that she’d rather rough it down here 
with me than mope around home, back in Nor- 
folk, without me. It surely is a splendid scheme 
for me to have her here.” He laughed again, 
with shy, boyish pride. “Sally Lou is a pretty 
plucky sort. And, if I may say it, so are you. ” 

Marian managed to smile her thanks. In- 
wardly she was hoping that the marvellous Sally 
Lou would stay away and leave her in peace. She 
was trembling with fatigue. Through the rest of 
the trip she hardly spoke. 

At Gates’s Landing they were met by a solemn, 
bashful youth and a buckboard drawn by two 
raw, excited horses. They whirled and bumped 
through a rutted woods road and stopped at last 
before a low white farm-house. Marian realized 
dimly that Rod was carrying her upstairs and into 
a small tidy room. She was so utterly tired that 
she dropped on the bed and slept straight through 
the day. 

She did not waken until her landlady’s tap called 


56 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


her to supper. Mr. and Mrs. Gates, two quiet, 
elderly people, greeted her kindly, and set a 
Homeric feast before her: shortbread and honey, 
broiled squirrels and pigeon stew, persimmon jam 
and hot mince pie. She ate dutifully, then crept 
back to her little room, with its mournful hair 
wreaths and its yellowed engravings of “Night 
and Morning ” and “The Death-bed of Wash- 
ington,’’ and fell asleep again. 

The three days that followed were like a queer, 
tired dream. It rained night and day. The 
roads were mired hub deep. Roderick could not 
drive over to see her, but he telephoned to her 
daily. But his hasty messages were little satis- 
faction. The heavy rains had overflowed the big 
ditch, he told her. That meant extra work for 
everybody on the plant. Carlisle was wretchedly 
sick, so Rod and Burford were sharing their chief’s 
watch in addition to their own duties. Worst, 
Marvin had quarrelled with the head runner of the 
big dredge, and “ We’re having to spend half our 
time in coddling them both for fear they’ll walk 
off and leave us, ” as Rod put it. In short, Roder- 
ick had neither time nor thought for his sister. 


ENTER MR. FINNEGAN 


57 


Marian realized that her brother was not incon- 
siderate. He was absorbed in his work and in 
its risks. Yet she keenly resented her loneliness. 

“ It isn’t Rod’s fault. But if I had dreamed that 
the West would be like this!” 

But on the fourth day, while she sat at her win- 
dow looking out at the endless rain, there came 
a surprising diversion. 

“A gentleman to see you, Miss Hallowell. 
Will you come downstairs?” 

“Why, Commodore McCloskey!” Marian hur- 
ried down, delighted. “How good of you to 
come!” 

Commodore McCloskey, dripping from his 
sou’wester to his mired boots, beamed like a 
drenched but cheery Santa Claus. 

“ I’ve taken the liberty to bring a friend to call,” 
he chuckled. “He’s young an’ green, an’ ’tis 
few manners he owns, but he’s good stock, an’— 
Here, ye rascal! Shame on ye, startin’ a fight 
the minute ye enter the house!” 

Marian gasped. Past her, with a~wild miauw, 
shot a yellow streak. That streak was Empress. 
Straight after the streak flew a fat, brown, curly 


58 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


object, yapping at the top of its powerful lungs. 
Up the window-curtain scrambled Empress. 
With a frantic leap she landed on the frame of 
Grandpa Gates’s large crayon portrait. Beneath 
the portrait her curly pursuer yelped and whined. 

“ Why, he’s a collie puppy. Oh, what a beauty ! 
What is his name?” 

“Beauty he is. And his name is Finnegan, 
after the poem, ‘ Off again, on again, gone again, 
Finnegan.’ Do ye remember? ’Tis him to the 
life. He is a prisint to ye from Missis McCloskey 
and meself. An’ our compliments an’ good wishes 
go wid him!” 

“How more than kind of you!” Marian, de- 
lighted, stooped to pat her new treasure. Finne- 
gan promptly leaped on her and spattered her 
fresh dress with eager, muddy paws. He then 
caught the table-cover in his teeth. With one 
frisky bounce he brought a shower of books and 
magazines to the floor. Mr. McCloskey clutched 
for his collar. The puppy gayly eluded him and 
made a dash for the pantry. Marian caught him 
just as he was diving headlong into the open 
flour-barrel. 


ENTER MR. FINNEGAN 


59 


“I do thank you so much! He’ll be such a 
pleasure; and such a protection,” gasped Marian, 
snatching Mrs. Gates’s knitting work from the 
puppy’s inquiring paws. 

“’Tis hardly a protector I’d call him,” Mr. Mc- 
Closkey returned. “ But he’ll sure keep your mind 
employed some. Good-day to ye, ma’am. And 
good luck with Finnegan.” 

Poor Empress! In her delight with this new 
plaything, Marian quite forgot her elder compan- 
ion. Moreover, as Mr. McCloskey had said, 
Finnegan could and did keep her mind employed, 
and her hands as well. 

“That pup is energetic enough, but he don’t 
appear to have much judgment,” said Mrs. Gates, 
mildly. In two hours Finnegan had carried off 
the family supply of rubbers and hid them in the 
corn-crib; he had torn up one of Rod’s blue-prints; 
he had terrorized the hen-yard; he had chased 
Empress from turret to foundation-stone. At 
length Empress had turned on him and cuffed 
him till he yelped and fled to the kitchen, where he 
upset a pan of bread sponge. 

“Suppose you take him for a walk, down to 


f 


60 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 

the big ditch. Maybe the fresh air will calm 
him down.” 

Marian made a leash of clothes-line and marched 
Finnegan down the sodden woods toward the 
ditch. She was so busy laughing at his droll per- 
formances that she quite forgot the dull fields, the 
wet, gray prospect. Crimson-cheeked and breath- 
less, she finally dragged him from the third al- 
luring rabbit-hole, despite his pleading whines, 
and started back up the canal. As she pushed 
through a hedge of willows a sweet, high, laughing 
voice accosted her. 

“ Good-morning, my haughty lady! Won’t you 
stop and talk with us a while?” 

Startled, Marian turned toward the call. Across 
the ditch, high on the opposite bank, stood the 
quaintest, prettiest group that her eyes had ever 
beheld. A tall, fair-haired girl of her own age, 
dressed in a bewitching short-waisted gown of 
scarlet and a frilly scarlet bonnet, stood in the 
leafless willows, a tiny white-clad child in her arms. 
Behind her a stout beaming negress in bandanna 
turban and gay plaid calico was lifting another 
baby high on her ample shoulder. 


ENTER MR. FINNEGAN 


61 


Marian stared, astonished. The whole group 
might well have stepped straight out of some 
captivating old engraving of the days before the 
war. 

“Haven’t you time to pass the time o’ day?” 
the sweet, mischievous voice entreated. “You 
are Miss Hallowell, I know. I’m Sarah Louisiana 
Burford, and I am just perishin’ to meet you. 
There is a board bridge just a rod or so up the 
canal. We’ll meet you there. Do please come, 
and bring your delightful dog. March right along 
now!” 

And Marian, laughing with amusement and de- 
light, marched obediently along. 


CHAPTER IV 

THE MARTIN-BOX NEIGHBORS 

Marian picked her way up the shore to the 
board bridge, with Finnegan prancing behind her. 
She felt a little abashed as she remembered her 
rather tart indifference to young Burford’s cordial 
invitation of the week before. But all her em- 
barrassment melted away as she crossed the little 
bridge and met Sally Lou’s welcoming face, her 
warm clasping hands. 

“You don’t know how hungry I have been to 
see you,” vowed Sally Lou, her brown eyes kin- 
dling under the scarlet bonnet. 

“We’ve been counting the hours till we should 
dare to go to call on Miss Northerner, haven’t we, 
kiddies? This is my son, Edward Fairfax Bur- 
ford, Junior, Miss Hallowell. Three years old, 
three feet square, and weighs forty-one pounds. 
Isn’t he rather gorgeous — if he does belong to me ! 
And this is Thomas Tucker Burford. Eighteen 

62 



ON THE EDGE OF THE OPPOSITE BANK STOOD THE QUAINTEST, 
PRETTIEST GROUP THAT HER EYES HAD EVER BEHELD. 



* 























% 











































. 

























































. 










THE MARTIN-BOX NEIGHBORS 63 

months old, twenty-six pounds, and the disposi- 
tion of an angel, as long as he gets his own way. 
And this is Mammy Easter, who came all the way 
from Norfolk with me, to take care of the babies, 
so that I could live here on the contract with Ned. 
Wasn’t she brave to come out to this cold, lone- 
some country all for me? And this martin-box 
is my house, and it is anxious to meet you, too, so 
come right in!” 

Marian climbed the high, narrow outside steps 
that led to the tiny play-house on stilts, and 
entered the low, red doorway, feeling as if she had 
climbed Jack’s bean-stalk into fairyland. Inside, 
the martin-box was even more fascinating. It 
boasted just three rooms. The largest room, gay 
with Mother Goose wall-paper and rosy chintz, 
was obviously the realm of Edward, Junior, and 
Thomas Tucker. The next room, with its cun- 
ning miniature fireplace, its shelves of books, its 
pictures and photographs, and its broad high- 
piled desk, was their parents’ abode; while the 
third room boasted fascinating white-painted cup- 
boards and sink, a tiny alcohol stove, and a wee 
table daintily set. 


64 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“ Aren’t you shocked at folks that eat in their 
kitchen? ” drawled Sally Lou, observing Marian 
with dancing eyes. “ But all our baking and heavy 
cooking is done for us, over on the quarter-boat. 
I brought the stove to heat the babies’ milk; and, 
too, I like to fuss up goodies for Ned when he is 
tired or worried. Poor boys! They’re having 
such an exasperating time with the contract this 
week! Everything seems possessed to go awry. 
We’ll have to see to it that they get a lot of cod- 
dling so’s to keep them cheered up, won’t we? ” 

“ Why, I — I suppose so. But how did you dare 
to bring your little children down here? They say 
that this is the most malarial district in the State. ” 
“I know. But they can’t catch malaria until 
May, when the mosquitoes come. Then I shall 
send them to a farm, back in the higher land. 
Mammy will take care of them; and I’ll stay down 
here with Ned during the day and go to the ba- 
bies at night. They’re pretty sturdy little tads. 
They are not likely to catch anything unless 
their mother is careless with them. And she isn’t 
careless, really. Is she, Tom Tucker?” She 
snatched up her youngest son, with a hug that 


THE MARTIN-BOX NEIGHBORS 65 

made his fat ribs creak. “Come, now! Let’s 
brew some stylish afternoon tea for the lady. 
Get down the caravan tea that father sent us, 
Mammy, and the preserved ginger, and my 
Georgian spoons. And fix some chicken bones 
on the stoop for Miss Northerner’s puppy. This 
is going to be a banquet, and a right frabjous 
one, too!” 

It was a banquet, and a frabjous one, Marian 
agreed. Sally Lou’s tea and Mammy’s nut-cakes 
were delicious beyond words. The bright little 
house, the dainty service, Sally Lou’s charming 
gay talk, the babies, clinging wide-eyed and 
adorable to her knee, all warmed and heartened 
Marian’s listless soul. She was ravished with 
everything. She looked in wonder and delight 
at the high sleeping-porch, with its double mos- 
quito bars and its duck screening and its cosey 
hammock-beds. (“Ned sleeps so much better 
here, where it is quiet, than on that noisy boat,” 
Sally Lou explained.) She gazed with deep re- 
spect at the tiny pantry, built of soap-boxes, lined 
with snowy oil-cloth. She marvelled at the ex- 
quisite old silver, the fine embroidered table- 


66 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


linen, the delicate china. And she caught her 
breath when her eyes lighted upon the beautiful 
painting in oils that hung above young Burford’s 
desk. It was a magical bit of color: a dreamy 
Italian garden, walled in ancient carved and mel- 
lowed stone, its slopes and borders a glory of 
roses, flaunting in splendid bloom; and past its 
flowery gates, a glimpse of blue, calm sea. She 
could hardly turn her eyes away from the lovely 
vista. It was as restful as an April breeze. And 
across the lower corner she read the clear trac- 
ing of the signature, a world-famous name. 

Sally Lou followed her glance. 

“You surely think I’m a goose, don’t you, to 
bring my gold teaspoons, and my wedding linen, 
and my finest tea-set down to a wilderness like 
this? Well, perhaps I am. And yet the very best 
treasures that we own are none too good for our 
home, you know. And this is home. Any place 
is home when Ned and the babies and I are to- 
gether. Besides, the very fact that this place is 
so queer and ugly and dismal is the best of reasons 
why we need all our prettiest things, and need to 
use them every day, don’t you see? So I picked 


THE MARTIN-BOX NEIGHBORS 67 


out my sacredest treasures to bring along. And 
that painting — yes, it was running a risk to 
bring so valuable a canvas down here. But 
doesn’t it just rest your heart to look at it? That 
is why I wanted it with us every minute. You 
can look at that blue sleepy sky, and those roses 
climbing the garden wall, and the sea below, and 
forget all about the noisy, grimy boats, and the 
mud, and sleet, and malaria, and the cross laborers, 
and the broken machinery, and everything else; 
and just look, and look, and dream. That is why 
I carted it along. Especially on Ned’s account, 
don’t you see? ” 

“Y-yes.” At last Marian took her wistful 
eyes from the picture. “ I wish that I had thought 
to bring some good photographs to hang in Rod’s 
state-room. I never thought. But there is no 
room to pin up even a picture post-card in his 
cubby-hole on the boat. I must go on now. I 
have had a beautiful time.” 

“There goes your brother this minute! In that 
little red launch, see? He is going up the ditch. 
Ring the dinner-bell, Mammy, that will stop him. 
He can take you and your dog up to Gates’s 


68 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


Landing and save you half an hour’s muddy 
walk.” 

Mammy’s dinner-bell pealed loud alarm. Rod- 
erick heard and swung the boat right-about. His 
sober, anxious face lighted as Marian and Sally 
Lou gayly hailed him. 

“I’m glad that you’ve met Mrs. Burford,” he 
said, as he helped Marian aboard and hoisted 
Finnegan astern with some difficulty and many 
yelps; for Finnegan left his chicken-bones only 
under forcible urging. “She is just about the 
best ever, and I hope you two will be regular 
chums.” 

“I love her this minute,” declared Marian, with 
enthusiasm. “Where are you bound, Rod? 
Mayn’t Finnegan and I tag along?” 

Rod’s face grew worried. 

“I’m bound upon a mighty ticklish cruise, Sis. 
It is a ridiculous cruise, too. Do you remember 
what I told you last week about the law that 
governs the taxing of the land-owners for the mak- 
ing of these ditches?” 

“Yes. You said that when the majority of the 
land-owners had agreed on doing the drainage 


THE MARTIN-BOX NEIGHBORS 69 

work, then the law made every owner pay his tax, 
in proportion to the acreage of his land which 
would be drained by the ditches, whether he 
himself wanted the drainage done or not. And 
you said that some of the farmers did not want the 
ditches dug, and that they were holding back their 
payments and making trouble for the contractors; 
while others were making still more trouble by 
blocking the right of way and refusing to let the 
dredges cut through their land. But how can they 
hold you back, Rod? The law says that all the 
district people must share in the drainage ex- 
penses, whether they like to or not, because the 
majority of their neighbors have agreed upon it. ” 
“The law says exactly that. Yes. But there 
are a lot of kinks to drainage law, and the farmers 
know it. Burford says that two or three of them 
have been making things lively for the company 
from the start. But just now we have only one 
troublesome customer to deal with. And she is a 
woman, that is the worst of it. She is a well-to- 
do, eccentric old lady, who owns a splendid farm, 
just beyond the Gateses. She paid her drainage 
assessment willingly enough. But now she says 


70 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


that, last fall, the boys who made the survey 
tramped through her watermelon-field and broke 
some vines and sneaked off with three melons. 
At least, so she indignantly states. Maybe it is 
so; although the boys swear it was a pumpkin- 
field, and that they didn’t steal so much as a jack- 
o’-lantern. Furthermore, she has put up barb wire 
and trespass notices straight across the contract 
right of way; and she has sent us notice that she 
is guarding that right of way with a gun, and 
that the first engineer who pokes his nose across 
her boundary fine is due to receive a full charge 
of buckshot. Sort of a shot-gun quarantine, see? 
Now we must start dredging the lateral that 
crosses her land next Monday, at the latest. It 
must be done at the present stage of high water, 
else we’ll have to delay dredging it until fall. Car- 
lisle planned to call on her to-day, and to mollify 
her if possible, but he’s too sick. So I must elbow 
in myself, and see what my shirt-sleeve diplomacy 
can do. I’m glad that I can take you along. Per- 
haps you can help to thaw her out. ” 

“Of all the weird calls to make! What is the 
old lady like, Rod?” 


THE MARTIN-BOX NEIGHBORS 71 


“ Burford says that she is a droll character. She 
has managed her own farm for forty years, and 
has made a fine success of it. Her name is Mrs. 
Chrisenberry. She is not educated, but she is 
very capable, and very kind-hearted when you 
once get on the right side of her. Yonder is her 
landing. Don’t look so scared, Sis. She won’t 
eat you.” 

Marian’s fear dissolved in giggles as they tee- 
tered up the narrow board walk to the low brick 
farm-house. They could not find a door-bell; 
they rapped and pounded until their knuckles 
ached. Finnegan yapped helpfully and chewed 
the husk door-mat. At last, a forbidding voice 
sounded from the rear of the house. 

“You needn’t bang my door down. Come 
round to the dryin’ yard, unless you’re agents. 
If you’re agents, you needn’t come at all. I’m 
busy. ” 

Meekly Rod and Marian followed this hospi- 
table summons. 

Across the muddy drying yard stretched rows 
of clothes-line, fluttering white. Beside a heaped 
basket of wet, snowy linen stood a very short, 


72 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


very stout little old lady, her thick woollen skirts 
tucked up under a spotless white apron, her small 
nut-cracker face glowering from under a sun- 
bonnet almost as large as herself. She took three 
clothes-pins from her mouth and scowled at Rod. 

“ Well!” said she. “Name your business. But 
I don’t want no graphophones, nor patent chick- 
feed, nor golden-oak dinin’-room sets, nor Gems of 
Poesy with gilt edges. Mind that. ” 

Marian choked. Rod knew that choke. Tears 
of strangling laughter stood in his eyes as he hum- 
bly stuttered his errand. 

“W-we engineers of the Breckenridge Company 
wish to offer our sincere apologies for any annoy- 
ance that our surveyors may have caused you. 
We are anxious to make any reparation that we 
can. And — er — We find ourselves obliged, on 
account of the high water, to cut our east laterals 
at once. We will be very grateful to you if you 
will be so kind as to overlook our trespasses of last 
season, and will permit us to go on with our work. 
I speak for the company as well as for myself. ” 

The old lady stared at him, with unwinking, 
beady eyes. There was a painful pause. 


THE MARTIN-BOX NEIGHBORS 73 


“Well, I don’t know. You’re a powerful slick, 
soft-spoken young man. I’ll say that much for 
you.” Marian gulped, and stooped hurriedly to 
pat Finnegan. “And I don’t know as I have any 
lastin’ gredge against your company. Them mel- 
ons was frost-bit, anyway. But if you do start 
your machinery on that lateral, mind I don’t want 
no more tamperin’ with my garden stuff. And 
I don’t want your men a-cavortin’ around, run- 
nin’ races on my land, nor larkin’ evenings, nor 
cornin’ to the house for drinks of water. One of 
them surveyors, last fall, he come to the door 
for a drink, an’ I was fryin’ crullers, an’ he asked 
for one, bold as brass. Says I, ‘Help yourself.’ 
Well, he did that. There was a blue platter 
brim full, and if he didn’t set down an’ eat every 
single cruller, down to the last crumb! An’ then 
he had the impudence to tell me to my face that 
they was tolerable good crullers, but that he’d 
wager the next platterful would taste better than 
the first, an’ he’d like to try and find out for 
sure ! ” 

“ I don’t blame him. I’d like to try that experi- 
ment myself,” said Rod serenely. The old lady 


74 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 

glared. Then the ghost of a twinkle flickered 
under the vasty sun-bonnet. 

“Well, as I say, I ain’t made up my mind yet. 
But I’ll let you know to-night, maybe. Now 
you’d better be goin’. Looks like more rain. ” 

“Can’t we help you with the clothes first?” 
asked Marian. The old lady shook out a huge, 
wet table-cloth and stood on tip-toe to pin it 
carefully on the line. 

“You might, yes. Take these pillow-cases. 
But don’t you drop them in the mud. My 
clothes-line broke down last week, and didn’t I 
spend a day of it, doin’ my whole week’s wash 
over again!” 

The strong breeze caught the big cloth and 
whipped it like a banner. Finnegan, who had 
been waiting politely in the background, beheld 
this signal with joy. With a gay yelp he bolted 
past Marian and seized a corner of the table- 
cloth in his teeth. 

“Scat!” cried Mrs. Chrisenberry, startled. 
“Where did that pup come from? Shoo!” 

Finnegan, unheeding, took a tighter grip, and 
swung his fat heavy body from the ground. There 


THE MARTIN-BOX NEIGHBORS 75 

was a sickening sound of tearing linen. Marian 
stood transfixed. Rod, his arms full of wet pillow- 
slips, dashed to the rescue. But he was not in 
time. 

“Scat, I say!” Mrs. Chrisenberry flapped her 
apron. 

Amiable creature, she wanted to play with him! 
Enchanted, the puppy let go the table-cloth and 
dashed at her, under full steam. His sturdy paws 
struck Mrs. Chrisenberry with the force of a 
young battering-ram. With an astonished shriek 
she swayed back, clutching at the table-cloth to 
steady herself. But the table-cloth and clothes- 
pins could not hold a moment against the on- 
slaught of the heavy puppy. By good fortune, 
the basketful of clothes stood directly behind Mrs. 
Chrisenberry. As the faithless table-cloth slid 
from the rope, back she pitched, with a terrified 
squeal, to land, safely if forcibly, in its snowy 
depths. 

Marian, quite past speech, sank on the porch 
steps. Rod stood gaping with horror. Mrs. 
Chrisenberry rose up with appalling calm. 

“You! You come here. You — varmint!” 

Finnegan did not hesitate. Trustfully he gam- 


76 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


boiled up; gayly he seized her apron hem in his 
white milk teeth and bit out a feather-stitched 
scallop. Mrs. Chrisenberry stooped. Her broad 
palm landed heavily on Finnegan’s curly ear. 

Alas for discipline! Finnegan dodged back and 
eyed her, amazed. One grieved yelp rent the air. 
Then, instantly repenting, he leaped upon her 
and smothered her with muddy kisses. This was 
merely the lady’s way of playing with him. How 
could he resent it! 

Then Rod came to his wits. He seized Mr. 
Finnegan by the collar and cuffed him into be- 
wildered silence. He caught up the wrecked table- 
cloth and the miry pillow-slips, he poured out 
regrets and apologies and promises in an all but 
tearful stream. Mrs. Chrisenberry did not say 
one word. Her small nut-cracker face set, omi- 
nous. 

“You needn’t waste no more soft sawder,” said 
she, at length. “I ’low these are just the ram- 
pagin’ doings I could look for every day if I once 
gave you folks permission to bring your dredge 
on my land. So I may’s well make up my mind 
right now. Tell your boss that those trespass 
signs an’ that barb wire are still up, and that 


THE MARTIN-BOX NEIGHBORS 77 

they’ll most likely stay up till doomsday. Good- 
mornin’.” 

“Well! I don’t give much for my shirt-sleeve 
diplomacy, ” groaned Rod, as they teetered away, 
down the board walk. 

“ I’m sorry, Rod. ” Then Marian choked again. 
Weak with laughter, she clung to the gate-post. 
“It was j-just like a moving picture! And when 
she vanished into the basket — Oh, dear — oh, 
dear!” 

“You better believe it was exactly like a moving 
picture,” muttered Rod. “It all went so fast I 
couldn’t get there in time to do one thing. It 
went like a cinematograph — Zip! And off flew 
all our chances for all time. Finnegan, you scoun- 
drel ! Do you realize that your playful little game 
will cost the company a lawsuit and a small fort- 
une besides? ” 

Finnegan barked and took a friendly nip of 
Rod’s ankle. Finnegan’s young conscience was 
crystal-clear. 

“Let’s take the launch down to Burford’s and 
tell them our misfortunes,” said Rod. “I need 
sympathy. ” 


78 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 

The Burfords heard their mournful tale with 
shouts of unpitying joy. 

“Yes, I *know, it’s hard luck. Especially with 
Marvin in the sulks and Carlisle sick,” said Ned 
Burford, wiping his eyes. “But the next time 
you start diplomatic negotiations, you had better 
leave that dog at home. I’m going over to the 
house-boat to tell Mr. Carlisle. Poor sick fellow, 
this story will amuse him if anything can.” 

He jumped into the launch. A minute later 
Rod brought it alongside the house-boat and Bur- 
ford disappeared within. 

“Mr. Carlisle, sir!” They heard his laughing 
voice at the chief’s state-room door. “May I 
come in? Will I disturb you if I tell you a good 
joke on Hallowell?” 

There was a pause. Then came a rush of feet. 
Burford dashed from the cabin and confronted 
Rod and Marion. His face was very white. 

“Hallowed! Come aboard, quick!” he said, 
in a shaking voice. “Mr. Cardsle is terribly id. 
He’s lying there looking like death; he couldn’t 
even speak to me. Hurry!” 


CHAPTER V 


GOOSE-GREASE AND DIPLOMACY 

Roderick leaped aboard. Marian followed, 
trembling with fear. 

Mr. Carlisle lay in his seaman’s hammock be- 
side the window. His gaunt hands were like ice. 
His lean face was ashen gray. But he nodded 
weakly and put out a shaking, courteous hand. 

“ Too bad to alarm you thus, ” he gasped. “ I — 
I was afraid of this. Malaria plays ugly tricks 
with a man’s heart now and then. You’d better 
ship me to the hospital at Saint Louis. They can 
patch me up in a week probably. Only, the sooner 
you can get me there, the better. ” 

“You call the foreman and tell him to get up 
steam on the big launch, Hallowed.” Burford, 
very pale, took command of the situation. “Miss 
Hallowed, wid you go and bring Sally Lou? I 
want her right away. She’s ad kinds of good in an 
emergency. ” 

79 


8o THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


Marian fled, her own heart pounding in her 
throat. But Sally Lou, after the first scared ques- 
tions, rose to the occasion, steady and serene. 

“Light the stove and make our soapstones and 
sand-bags piping-hot, Mammy. Heat some bouil- 
lon and put it into the thermos bottle. Ned, you 
and the foreman must take him down to Grafton 
Landing on the launch. The Lucy Lee is due to 
reach Grafton late this afternoon. I’ll catch the 
Lucy's captain on the long-distance telephone at 
the landing above Grafton, and tell him to wait 
at Grafton Landing till you get there with Mr. 
Carlisle. Then you can put him aboard the Lucy. 
She will make Saint Louis in half the time that 
you could make it with the launch. Besides, the 
Lucy will mean far easier travelling for Mr. Car- 
lisle. ^ 

“I never thought of the Lucy! I’d meant to 
wait with him at the Landing and take the mid- 
night train. But the steam-boat will be a far 
easier trip. Sally Lou, you certainly are a peach ! ” 
Young Burford looked at his wife with solemn ad- 
miration. “ Go and telephone, quick. We’ll have 
Carlisle ready to start in an hour. ” 


GOOSE-GREASE AND DIPLOMACY 81 


In less than an hour the launch was made ready, 
with cot and pillows and curtains, as like an am- 
bulance as a launch could well be. With clumsy 
anxious pains Roderick and Burford lifted their 
chief aboard. Marian hung behind, eager to help, 
yet too frightened and nervous to be of service. 
But Sally Lou, her yellow hair flying under her 
ruffly red bonnet, her baby laughing and crowing 
on her shoulder, popped her flushed face gayly 
under the awning to bid Mr. Carlisle good-by. 

“If it wasn’t for these babies I’d go straight 
along and take care of you myself, Mr. Carlisle,” 
she cried. “But the hospital will take better care 
of you than I could, I reckon. And the week’s va- 
cation will do you no end of good. Besides it will 
set these two lazybones to work. ” She gave her 
husband a gentle shake. “Ned and Mr. Hallowell 
will have to depend on themselves, instead of leav- 
ing all the responsibility to you. It will be the 
making of them. You’ll see!” 

“Perhaps that is true.” Carlisle’s gray lips 
smiled. He was white with suffering, but he 
spoke with his unvarying kind formality. “I am 
leaving you gentlemen with a pretty heavy load. 


82 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


But — I am not apprehensive. I know that you 
boys will stand up to the contract, and that 
you will carry it on with success. Good-by, and 
good luck to you!” 

The launch shot away down-stream. Sally 
Lou looked after it. Marian saw her sparkling 
eyes grow very grave. 

“Mr. Carlisle is mighty brave, isn’t he? But 
he will not come back to work in a week’s time. 
No, nor in a month’s time either if I know any- 
thing about it. But there’s no use a-glooming, 
is there, Thomas Tucker! You two come up to 
my house and we’ll have supper together and 
watch for Ned; for if he meets the Lucy at 
Grafton he can bring the launch back by ten 
to-night. ” 

Sally Lou was a good prophet. It was barely 
nine when Ned’s launch whistled at the land- 
ing. Ned climbed the steps, looking tired and 
excited. 

“Yes, we overhauled the Lucy , all right. Mr. 
Carlisle seemed much more comfortable when we 
put him aboard. He joked me about being so 
frightened and said he’d come back in a day or so 


GOOSE-GREASE AND DIPLOMACY 83 


as good as new. But — I don’t know how we’ll 
manage here. With Carlisle laid up, and Marvin 
gone off in the sulks, for nobody knows how long — 
Well, for the next few days this contract is up to 
us, Hallowell. That is all there is to that. And 
we’ve got to make good. We’ve got to put it 
through. ” 

“You certainly must make good. And it is 
up to us girls to help things along, ” said Sally Lou, 
briskly. “Isn’t it, Marian? Yes, I’m going to 
call you Marian right away. It’s such a saving 
of time compared to ‘Miss Hallo well.’ And the 
very first thing to-morrow morning we will drive 
over to Mrs. Chrisenberry’s, and coax her into 
letting you boys start that lateral through her 
land.” 

Three startled faces turned to her. Three 
astounded voices rose. 

“Coax her, indeed! On my word! When she 
drove Rod and me off the place this very morn- 
ing!” 

“ Think you dare ask her to take down her barb- 
wire barricade and lay away her shot-gun? ‘Not 
till doomsday!’” 


84 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“ Sally Lou, are you daft? You’ve never laid 
eyes on Mrs. Chrisenberry. You don’t know 
what you’re tackling. We’ll not put that lateral 
through till we’ve dragged the whole question 
through the courts. Don’t waste your time in 
dreaming, child.” 

“I’m not going to dream. I’m going to act. 
You’ll go with me, won’t you, Marian? We’ll 
take the babies and the buckboard. But, if you 
don’t mind, we’ll leave Mr. Finnegan at home. 
Finnegan’s diplomacy is all right, only that it’s a 
trifle demonstrative. Yes, you boys are welcome 
to shake your heads and look owlish. But wait 
and see!” 

“She’ll never try to face that ferocious old 
lady,” said Rod, on the way home. 

“Of course not. She’s just making believe,” 
rejoined Marian. 

Little did they know Sally Lou! Marian had 
just finished her breakfast the next morning when 
the yellow buckboard, drawn by a solemn, scraggy 
horse, drove up to Mrs. Gates’s door. On the 
front seat, rosy as her scarlet gown and cloak, sat 
Sally Lou. From the back seat beamed Mammy 


GOOSE-GREASE AND DIPLOMACY 85 


Easter, in her gayest bandanna, with Edward Bur- 
ford, Junior, dimpled and irresistible, beside her, 
and Thomas Tucker bouncing and crowing in her 
arms. 

“ Climb right in, Miss Northerner! Good-by, 
poor Finnegan! This time we’re going to try the 
persuasive powers of two babies as compared to 
those of one collie. Here we go!” 

“Are we really going to Mrs. Chrisenberry’s? 
Are you actually planning to ask her for the right 
of way?” queried Marian. 

Sally Lou chuckled. Her round face was guile- 
less and bland. 

“Certainly not. I am going to Mrs. Chrisen- 
berry’s to buy some goose-grease. ” 

4 ‘ To buy some goose-grease ! Horrors ! What is 
goose-grease, pray?” 

“ Goose-grease is goose-grease. Didn’t you ever 
have the croup when you were young, Miss North- 
erner? And didn’t they roll you in warm blankets, 
and then bandage your poor little throat with 
goose-grease and camphor and red pepper?” 

“An’ a baked onion for your supper,” added 
Mammy Easter. “An’ a big saucer of butter- 


86 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


scotch, sizzlin’-hot. Dey ain’t no croup what kin 
stand before dat!” 

“ Mercy, I should hope not. I never heard of 
anything so dreadful. You aren’t going to give 
goose-grease to your own babies, I hope? ” 

Sally Lou surveyed her uproarious sons, and 
allowed herself a brief giggle. 

“ They’ve never had a sign of croup so far, I’m 
thankful to say. But one ought to be prepared. 
And Mrs. Chrisenberry has the finest poultry- 
yard in the country-side. We’ll enjoy seeing 
that, too. Don’t look so dubersome. Wait and 
see!” 

Mrs. Chrisenberry was working in her vegetable 
garden as they drove up. Her queer little face 
was bound in a huge many-colored “nuby,” her 
short skirts were kilted over high rubber boots. 
She leaned on her spade and gave the 'girls a 
nod that, as Marian told Rod later, was like a 
twelve-pound shot squarely across the enemy’s 
bows. 

Sally Lou merely beamed upon her. 

“Wet weather for putting in your garden, isn’t 
it?” she cried, gayly. “I’m Mrs. Burford, Mrs. 


GOOSE-GREASE AND DIPLOMACY 87 


Chrisenberry. My husband is an engineer on 
the Breckenridge contract. ” 

“ H’m !” Mrs. Chrisenberry glared. Sally Lou 
chattered gayly on. 

“Pm staying down at the canal with these two 
youngsters, and I want to buy some of your fine 
goose-grease. They’ve never had croup in all 
their born days, but it’s such a cold, wet spring 
that it is well to be prepared for anything. ” 

“ Goose-grease !” Mrs. Chrisenberry looked at 
her keenly. “For those babies? Highty-tighty! 
Goose-grease is well enough, but hot mutton taller 
is better yet. Eve raised two just as fine boys 
as them, so I know. Mutton taller an’ camphire, 
that’s sovereign.” 

She put down her spade and picked her way to 
the buckboard. Edward Junior hailed her with 
a shriek of welcome. Thomas Tucker floundered 
wildly in Mammy’s grasp and clutched Mrs. 
Chrisenberry around the neck with a strangling 
squeeze. 

Marian gasped. For Mrs. Chrisenberry, grim, 
stern little nut-cracker lady, had lifted Thomas 
to her stooped little shoulder and was gathering 


88 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


Edward Junior into a lean strong little arm. 
Both babies crowed with satisfaction. Thomas 
jerked off the tasselled nuby and showered rose- 
leaf kisses from Mrs. Chrisenberry’s tight knob of 
gray hair to the tip of her dour little chin. Edward 
pounded her gleefully with fists and feet. 

“ They’ll strangle her,” Marian whispered, 
aghast. 

“Pooh, she doesn’t mind,” Sally Lou whispered 
back. “You mustn’t let them pull you to pieces, 
Mrs. Chrisenberry. They’re as strong as little 
bear cubs. ” 

“Guess I know that.” Mrs. Chrisenberry 
shook Edward’s fat grip loose from her tatting 
collar. “They’re the living images of my own 
boys, thirty years ago. I hope your children 
bring you as good luck as mine have brought me. 
They’ve grown up as fine men as you’d find in a 
day’s journey. Let me take ’em to see the hen 
yard. They’ll like to play with the little chickens, 
I know.” 

Edward and Thomas Tucker were charmed with 
the hen yard. They fell upon a brood of tiny yel- 
low balls with cries of ecstasy. Only the irate 


GOOSE-GREASE AND DIPLOMACY 89 


pecks and squawks of the outraged hen mother 
prevented them from hugging the fuzzy peepers to 
a loving death. 

“ They’re a pretty lively team,” remarked Mrs. 
Chrisenberry. “Let’s take ’em into the house, 
and I’ll give them some cookies and milk. I don’t 
know much about new-fangled ways of feeding 
children, but I do know that my cookies never 
hurt anybody yet.” 

She led them through her shining kitchen into 
a big, bright sitting-room. Again Marian halted 
to stare. This was not the customary chill and 
dreary farm-house “parlor.” Instead, she saw 
a wide, fire-lit living-room, filled with flowering 
plants, home-like with its books and pictures; 
and at the arched bay-window a beautiful up- 
right piano. 

Mrs. Chrisenberry followed her glance. 

“Land, I don’t ever touch it,” she said, with a 
dry little nut-cracker chuckle. “My oldest boy 
he gave it to me, for he knows I’m that hungry 
for music, and whenever my daughter-in-law comes 
to visit she plays for me by the hour, and it’s 
something grand. And now and then a neighbor 


9 o THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


will pick out a tune for me. My, don’t I wish I 
could keep it goin’ all the time! You girls don’t 
play, I suppose?” 

Sally Lou’s eyes met Marian’s with a quick 
question. Marian’s cheeks grew hot. 

“I — I play a little. But I’m sure that Mrs. 
Burford ” 

“Mrs. Burford will play some other time,” 
interrupted Sally Lou, hastily. “ Go on, that’s a 
good girl!” 

Now, it bored Marian dismally to play for stran- 
gers. She refused so habitually that few of her 
friends knew what a delightful pianist she really 
was. But dimly she realized that Sally Lou’s 
eyes were flashing with anxious command. She 
opened the piano. 

She ran through the airs from the “Tales from 
Hoffmann,” then played a romping folk-dance, 
and, at last, the lovely magic of the “ Spring Song.” 

Mrs. Chrisenberry hardly breathed. She sat 
rigidly in her chair, her knotted little hands shut 
tight, her beady eyes unwinking. 

“My, but that goes to the place,” she sighed, 
as the last airy harmony died away. “Now I’ll 


GOOSE-GREASE AND DIPLOMACY 91 


bring your cookies and milk, you lambs, and then 
you’d better be starting home. It looks like 
rain. ” 

Marian and Sally Lou fell behind in the pro- 
cession to the carriage. Edward Junior toddled 
down the board walk, clinging to his hostess’s 
skirt. Thomas Tucker laughed and gurgled in 
her arms. Mrs. Chrisenberry put Thomas on 
Mammy’s lap, then picked up Edward, who, 
loath to depart, squeezed her neck with warm, 
crumby little hands and snuggled his fat cheek 
to her own. Mrs. Chrisenberry looked down at 
him. Her grim little nut-cracker face quivered 
oddly. A dim pink warmed her brown, withered 
cheek. 

“It’s nice while they’re little, isn’t it?” she said, 
with a queer, wistful smile. “Though I dassent 
complain. My boys are the best sons anybody 
ever had, and they treat me like a queen. Here, 
son, stop pulling my ears so hard; it hurts. Now, 
I’ll send you a whole bowlful of mutton taller to- 
morrow; and a jar of goose-grease the very next 
rendering I make. Didn’t you say you’re living 
on the drainage job? Well” — the dim pink grew 


92 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


bright in her cheek — “ well, you tell your man that 
he kin go right ahead and cut his ditch through my 
land. I’ll not stand in the way no longer. Though 
tell him that I’ll expect him to see that his men 
don’t tramp through my garden nor steal my 
watermelons. Mind that. ” 

“I know I can promise that, always.” Sally 
Lou’s eyes were brown stars. “And thank you 
more than tongue can tell, Mrs. Chrisenberry. 
You don’t know what this will mean to my hus- 
band, and I never can tell you how much we shall 
appreciate your kindness. Packed in all right, 
Mammy? Come, Edward, son. Good-by!” 

They drove away in the silence of utter, aston- 
ished joy. 

“Your goose-grease worked that miracle, Sally 
Lou!” 

“ Nonsense ! It was your music that carried the 
day. But oh, I was so afraid you were going to 
say no!” 

Again Marian’s cheeks flushed hot, with queer, 
vexed shame. 

“Well, I did all but refuse. I do hate to play for 
anybody, especially for strangers. ” 


GOOSE-GREASE AND DIPLOMACY 93 


“Why?” Sally Lou looked hopelessly puzzled. 
“But when it gives them so much pleasure! And 
besides, if you want a selfish reason, think how you 
have helped the boys. There they come now. ” 
With a joyful call Sally Lou waved her scarf to 
the two figures plodding up the canal road. Then 
as the flimsy silk could not do justice to her feel- 
ings, she caught up little Thomas Tucker and flour- 
ished him, a somewhat ponderous banner. The 
boys hurried to meet them. They listened to the 
girls’ excited tale, at first unbelieving, then with 
faces of amazement and relief. 

“Well, you two girls deserve a diamond medal,” 
declared Burford, heartily. His flushed, perturbed 
face brightened. “You don’t know what a load 
you have taken off our shoulders. ” He looked at 
Roderick. “This is a real sterling-silver lining to 
our cloud, isn’t it, Hallowell? So big that it fairly 
bulges out around the edges. ” 

“A silver lining to what cloud, Ned?” demanded 
Sally Lou, promptly curious. “Has something 
gone wrong with the work? Another break in the 
machinery? Or trouble among the laborers, or 
what?” 


94 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


The two boys looked at each other. Marian 
studied their faces. Burford was flushed and ex- 
cited. Rod’s stolid dark face was frowning and 
intent. 

“Own up!” commanded Sally Lou, sternly. 
“Don’t you dare try to keep your dark and dread- 
ful secrets from us!” 

The boys laughed. But a quick warning glance 
flashed from one to the other. Then Burford 
spoke. 

“Don’t conjure up so many bogies, Sally Lou. 
We — we’ve had bad news from Mr. Carlisle. His 
doctor told me, over the long-distance, that he 
would not be able to leave the hospital for a fort- 
night. And he must not come back on the work 
for two months at the best. ” 

Sally Lou sobered. 

“That is bad news. Poor Mr. Carlisle! But is 
that all that you have to tell me, Ned?” 

Burford jumped. He reddened a little. 

“ Y-yes, I reckon that’s all. You girls will have 
to excuse us now. Hallowell and I are going back 
to our boat-house to fix up our March reports. ” 

“Anything we two can help about?” 


GOOSE-GREASE AND DIPLOMACY 95 


“You two have put in a mighty good day’s work 
in securing that right of way. Though if you’re 
hunting for a job you might verify the yardage 
report I left on your desk. Run along now, we’re 
going to be busy. ” 

“Such is gratitude,” remarked Sally Lou, with 
ironic philosophy, as she drove away. “‘Run 
along, we’re busy.’ Just like a boy!” 

Roderick and Ned looked after the buckboard, a 
little shame-faced at Sally Lou’s parting shot. 

“Just the same, it does no good to tell them all 
our ill-luck, ” said Burford. 

“And Marvin’s threatening to quit is even worse 
luck than Carlisle’s illness. For his quarrel with 
the foreman has started half a dozen quarrels 
among the workmen. Queer, isn’t it? A grouch 
like that will spread like wild-fire through a whole 
camp. ” 

“Marvin is waiting on the house-boat for us 
this minute.” Ned peered through a telescope 
of his hands. “ Now we’ll listen to a tale of woe ! ” 

Marvin did not wait till they could reach the 
boat. His angry voice rang out across the canal. 

“Well, Mister Hallowed ! I just got the note 


96 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


that you so kindly sent me. So you and Mr. Bur- 
ford here think that I ought to stand by the job, 
hey, ‘and not let my private quarrels influence 
me into deserting the contract?’ Thank you, 
Mister Hallowell, for your kind advice. But I 
rather guess I can get along without any orders 
from either of you two swells. No, nor criticisms, 
either.” 

“We’re not giving orders, and you know that, 
Marvin. ” Rod spoke sharply. “But you’re never 
going to throw down your billet just because 
of a two-cent fuss with the foreman. Think what 
a hole you’d leave the company in! Carlisle 
sick, high water holding back our freight, coal ship- 
ments stalled, everything tied up ” 

“And you’re directly responsible to the com- 
pany for that berm construction,” broke in Bur- 
ford hotly. “You know well enough that we can’t 
watch that work and oversee the ditch-cutting at 
one and the same time. You’re not going to sneak 
out and play quitter ” 

“I’m going to play quitter, as you call it, when- 
ever I choose. That happens to be right now. 
You two silk-stockings can like it, or lump it. 


GOOSE-GREASE AND DIPLOMACY 97 

Mulcahy!” he yelled to the camp commissary 
man, who was just starting down the canal in his 
launch on his way to Grafton for supplies. “ Wait, 
I’m going with you. Here, take this. ” 

He bolted into his cabin, then dashed back, 
carrying a heavy suit-case. He heaved it into the 
launch, then sprang in beside the open-mouthed 
steward. 

“Now, I’m off!” He blazed the words at the 
two boys staring from the bank. “You can run 
this contract to suit yourselves, gentlemen. I’ll 
send my resignation direct to the company. I 
don’t have to take orders from you two swells an- 
other hour. Good-morning, gentlemen!” 

The steward grinned sheepishly at sight of his 
superior officer behaving himself like a spunky 
small boy. With a rueful nod toward Roderick 
he headed the launch down the canal. 

Burford expressed himself with some vim. 

“ Well, he’s gone. Good riddance, I call it. The 
surly hound!” 

“I don’t know about that,” muttered Rod. 
“It was my fault, maybe, writing him that letter. 
I was too high and mighty, I suppose. ” 


q8 the hallowell partnership 


“You needn’t blame yourself,” returned Bur- 
ford bluntly. “We’ve put up with his insolence 
and his scamped work and his everlasting wran- 
gling long enough. Mr. Carlisle won’t blame us; 
neither will the company. ” 

“We ought to wire company head-quarters at 
Chicago, and report just how things stand; then 
they’ll send us a supervising engineer to take Mr. 
Carlisle’s place. And a new scrub, too, instead 
of Marvin.” 

“You’re right, Hallowell. You wire them 
straight off, will you? I’m going up to the first 
lateral to watch the afternoon shift. ” 

Early that evening Roderick received the an- 
swering wire from head-quarters. He read it care- 
fully. His sober young face settled into grim lines. 

An hour later Burford turned up, tired, but in 
high spirits, for his dredge had made a flying 
start on the lateral. Roderick handed him the 
despatch. 

The two boys stared at each other. A deep 
flush burned to Burford’ s temples. Rod’s hard 
jaw set. 

The message was curt and to the point. 


GOOSE-GREASE AND DIPLOMACY 99 

“The Breckenridge Engineering Company. 

OFFICE OF THE VICE-PRESIDENT. 

Roderick Hallowell, Esq. 

c /o Contract Camp , Grafton , Illinois. 

Sir: Your report received. Consider your- 
self and Burford as jointly in command till 
further orders. I shall reach camp on route in- 
spection by 26th inst. Kindly report conditions 
daily by wire. 

Breckenridge.” 

“So we’re made jointly responsible. Put in 
charge by Breckenridge. By Breck the Great, his 
very self. H’m-m.” Burford looked out at the 
crowded boats, the muddy, half-built levee, 
stretching far as eye could see; the night shift 
of laborers, eighty strong, shuffling aboard the 
quarter-boat for their hot supper; the massed, 
powerful machinery, stretching its black funnels 
and cranes against the red evening sky. “So 
we’re the two Grand Panjandrums on this job. 
Responsible for excavation that means prosperity 
or ruin for half the farmers in the district, ac- 
cording as we do or don’t finish those laterals 
before the June rise; responsible for a pay-roll 
that runs over four hundred dollars a day; re- 


ioo THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


sponsible for a time-lock contract that will cost 
our company five hundred dollars forfeit money a 
day for every day that we run over our time limit. 
Well, Hallowell?” 

“It strikes me,” said Rod, very briefly, “that 
it’s up to us. ” 

“Yes, it is up to us. But if we don’t make 
good ” 

“Don’t let that worry you.” Rod’s jaw set, 
steel. “Don’t give that a thought. We’ll make 
good.” 


/ 


CHAPTER VI 

THE CONTRACT’S RECEIVING DAY 

“ Hello, Sis!” It was Roderick’s voice over 
the telephone. “How are you feeling this fine, 
muggy morning?” 

“ Pretty well, I suppose. How are you, Rod? 
Where are you telephoning from?” 

“From Burford’s shack. We’re in a pinch down 
here, Marian. We need you to help out. Can’t 
you ask Mr. Gates to hitch up and bring you down 
to camp right away? Or if you’ll walk down to 
Gates’s Landing I’ll send Mulcahy with the 
launch, to bring you the rest of the way. And put 
on your very best toggery, Sis. War paint and 
feathers and all that. That pretty lavender silk 
rig will do. But don’t forget the gimcracks. 
Put on all the jewelry you own.” 

“Why, Roderick Hallowell! What can you 
mean? Dress up in my best, and come down to 


IOI 


io2 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


camp at nine in the morning, and on Sunday morn- 
ing at that?” 

“I mean just what I say.” Then Roderick 
chuckled irresistibly. “Poor Sis, I don’t wonder 
you’re puzzled. But Sunday is the contract’s day 
at home, and we want you to stand in line and 
receive; or pour tea, whichever you prefer to do. 
Do you see?” 

“No, I don’t see. All I do see is that you’re 
talking nonsense. And I don’t intend to come 
down to the camp. It is such a hot, horrid morn- 
ing, I don’t propose to stir. I want you to come 
up and spend the day here instead. Mrs. Gates 
wants you, too, she says, for dinner and for supper 
as well. And yesterday the rural-delivery man 
brought a whole armful of new magazines. We’ll 
sit on the porch, and you can read and I’ll write 
letters, and we’ll have a lovely, quiet day to- 
gether. ” 

There was a pause. When Roderick spoke 
again, his voice was rather quenched. 

“ Sorry, Sis, but it isn’t possible for me to come, 
even for dinner. I’ll be hard at it here, every 
minute of the day.” 


THE CONTRACT’S RECEIVING DAY 103 

“You mean that you must work on the con- 
tract all day Sunday? When you have worked 
fourteen hours a day, ever since you came West?” 
Marian’s voice was very tart. “Can’t you stop 
long enough to go to church with me, even? 
There’s a beautiful little church four miles away. 
It’s just a pleasant drive. Surely you can give up 
two hours of the morning, if you can spare no more 
time!” 

“It isn’t a question of what I’m willing to do. 
And I am not planning to work on Sunday. As 
you know, Sis, we bank our fires Saturday night 
and give the laborers a day off. Nearly all the 
men left for town last night to stay till Monday. 
But listen. Burford tells me that, on every clear 
Sunday, we can expect a visit from most of the 
land-owners for miles around. And not just from 
the land-owners themselves: their sisters, and 
their cousins, and their aunts; and the children, 
and the neighbors, and the family cat. They want 
to see for themselves just how the work is going 
on. When you stop to think, it’s their own work. 
Their money is paying for every shovelful of dirt 
we move, and every inch of levee-work. And 


104 THE hallowell partnership 


they’re paying every copper of our salaries, too. 
They have a right to see how their own investment 
is being used, Sis. ” 

“So you have to treat these country people as 
honored guests! Cart them up and down the 
canal, and show them the excavations, and let 
them pry into your reports, and ask you silly 
questions! Of all the tiresome, preposterous 
things!” 

“That’s pretty much what we’ll do. But there 
is nothing preposterous about it; it’s their right. 
And we fellows want to do the decent thing. Now, 
more than ever, we want to do everything properly 
because Carlisle is sick and away. Burford says 
that Carlisle was more exacting about these visits 
of inspection than about anything else on the plant. 
He said that when a man builds a house to protect 
his family he has the right to oversee every inch 
of the construction, if he likes. On the same prin- 
ciple, these farmers who are digging canals and 
putting up levees to protect their lands should 
have the right to watch the work, step by step. 
Burford says, too, that Carlisle, with his everlast- 
ing patience and courtesy, was steadily winning 


THE CONTRACT’S RECEIVING DAY 105 

over the whole district; even the men who had 
fought the first assessments tooth and nail. It is 
the least we boys can do to keep up the good 
feeling that Carlisle has established.” 

“Well, I think it is all very absurd. Why 
should I come down to the work? These people 
do not even know that I exist. And if you really 
need somebody to talk to their wives and be gra- 
cious and all that, why can’t Mrs. Burford do it 
better than I? She is right on the ground, any- 
way. ” 

“Yes, she’s right on the ground. And so is 
Thomas Tucker’s newest tooth. The poor little 
skeezicks howled half the night, Burford says. 
He has stopped yelling just now, but he won’t let 
his mother out of his sight for one minute. Mrs. 
Burford is pretty much worn to a frazzle. But I 
don’t want to pester you, Marian. ” There was a 
worried note in Rod’s voice now. “I wouldn’t 
have you come for any consideration, if it were to 
make you ill or tired. So perhaps we’d better not 
think of it. ” 

Marian shrugged her shoulders. An odd, teas- 
ing question stirred in her mind. 


io6 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“I rather think I can stand the day if you can. 
Finnegan and I will be at the landing in half an 
hour. I, and my best beads and wampum, and 
my new spring hat. There, now!” 

Not waiting for Rod’s delighted reply, she hur- 
ried away to dress. A whimsical impulse led her 
to put on her freshest and daintiest gown, a charm- 
ing lilac silk, with a wide, tilting picture hat, 
heaped with white and purple lilacs. She was 
standing at the little pier, tugging at her long 
gloves, when the duty-launch, with Rod himself 
at the wheel, shot round the bend. Rod waved 
his hand; then, at sight of her amazing finery, he 
burst into a whoop of satisfaction. 

“Will you look at that! Marian Hallo well, 
you’re the best ever. I might have known you’d 
play up. Though I was scared stiff, for fear you’d 
think that just every-day clothes would do. My, 
but you’re stunning! You’re looking stronger, 
too, Sis. You’re not nearly so wan and spooky as 
you were a week ago. ” 

“I’m feeling better, too.” Marian’s color rose. 
Even her sulky humor must melt under Rod’s 
beaming approval. “Now give me my sailing 


THE CONTRACT'S RECEIVING DAY 107 

orders, Rod. How many callers will we have? 
What sort of people will they be? Tart and grim, 
like Mrs. Chrisenberry, I suppose, or else kindly 
and bashful and ‘ woodsy, ’ like the Gateses? Will 
they stop by on their way home from church, or 
will they come promptly after dinner and spend 
the afternoon?” 

Rod laughed. “No telling, Sister. We may 
have ten callers, we may have a hundred. You’ll 
find all kinds of people among them; precisely as 
you’ll find all kinds of people on Mount Vernon 
Street, Boston, Massachusetts. There’ll be nice, 
neighborly folks who’ll drive up the canal road in 
Bond Street motoring clothes and sixty-horse- 
power cars. There’ll be other nice, neighborly 
folks who’ll ride in through the woods on their 
plough horses, wearing slat sunbonnets and hick- 
ory shirts. And they’ll be friendly, and critical, 
and enthusiastic, and dubersome, all in a heap. 
You’ll need all your social experience, and all your 
tact, and all the diplomacy you can muster. 
See?” 

“Yes, I’m beginning to see.” Marian’s eyes 
were thoughtful. Then she sprang up to wave 


io8 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


her lilac parasol in greeting to the martin-box and 
Sally Lou. 

“ Isn’t this the most mournful luck that ever 
was!” Sally Lou sat with Thomas Tucker, a for- 
lorn little figure, planted firmly on her knee. “To 
think that my son must spend his first afternoon 
of the season in cutting a wicked double tooth! 
Maybe it’ll come through by dinner-time, though. 
Then he’ll go to sleep, and I can slip over and help 
you entertain our people — Why, Marian Hallo- 
well! Oh, what a lovely, lovely gown! You wise 
child, how did you know that to wear it to-day 
was precisely the wisest thing that you could pos- 
sibly do!” 

“I didn’t know that. I just put it on. Partly 
for fun, and — well, partly to provoke Rod, I sup- 
pose.” Marian felt rather foolish. But she had 
no time for further confidences. 

Up the muddy canal road came a roomy family 
carriage, drawn by a superbly matched black 
team. That carriage was packed solid to the 
dashboard. Father, two tall boys, and a rosy 
little daughter crammed the front seat; mother, 
grandmother, and aunty were fitted neatly into 


THE CONTRACT’S RECEIVING DAY 109 

the back; and a fringe of small fry swung from 
every direction. 

“ Morning. ” The father reined in and gave 
everybody a friendly nod and smile. “How are 
you, Mr. Burford? Glad to meet you, Mr. Hal- 
lowed. No, thank you, we’re on our way to Sun- 
day-school and church, so we haven’t a minute to 
stop. But I have been wanting to know how you 
think lateral four will work out; the one that 
turns down past my farm. Will that sand cut 
give you much trouble?” 

“It will make slower dredging, Mr. Moore. 
But we’ll put it through as fast as we can. ” 

“Um. I’m in no hurry to see it go through. 
The high water isn’t due for a month, anyway. 
Now, I don’t know much about sand-cutting. But 
I’ve been told that your worst trouble in a sand 
streak is with the slides. After your dredge- 
dipper has dumped the stuff ashore, it won’t stay 
put. It keeps tobogganing back into the channel 
and blocking your cut. So sometimes you have to 
hoist it out two or three times over.” 

“That’s exactly the case, Mr. Moore. Usually 
our levee gangs follow along and tamp the sand 


no THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


down, or else spread it back from the berm where 
it has no chance to slide. But it is getting so near 
the time set for the completion of our upper lateral 
cut that we are obliged to keep our levee shift at 
work on the upper laterals and take our chances 
on the sand staying where we pile it. ” 

“Just what I’d supposed. Now, I shall need 
a lot of that sand, in a week or so, for some cement 
work. S’pose I send you a couple of teams and 
half a dozen hands to-morrow, to cart off the sand 
under your direction. Would that help things 
along?” 

“Help things along? I should say it would!” 
Rod beamed. “It would be the most timely help 
we could ask. ” 

“But won’t it put you to a lot of trouble, sir,” 
asked Burford, “to take the hands off their regu- 
lar farm-work in that way?” 

“W-well, no. Anyway they can haul sand for 
a day or so without making much difference. 
And it will be a heap handier for you boys to have 
the stuff carted off as fast as you throw it ashore. ” 

“It surely will. That’s the best news we’ve 
heard in one while!” The boys stood smiling 


THE CONTRACT’S RECEIVING DAY hi 


at each other, completely radiant. Mr. Moore 
nodded and turned his horses. 

“Glad if it will be any accommodation. Well, 
good day to you all. My good wishes to Mr. Car- 
lisle. Tell him I said he left a couple of mighty 
competent substitutes, but that his neighbors will 
be glad to see him coming back, just the same. ” 

The big carriage with its gay load rolled away. 

“ So Moore will send men and teams to help us 
on that sand cut!” Burford, fairly chortling with 
satisfaction, started toward the martin-box. “If 
all our land-owners treated us with half the con- 
sideration that he always gives, our work would be 
a summer’s dream. I’m going up to tell Sally 
Lou.” 

He had hardly reached the martin-box before 
he turned with a shout. 

“There come our next visitors, Hallowell. The 
commodore and Mrs. McCloskey, in that fat lit- 
tle white launch. See?” 

Commodore McCloskey it was, indeed. Finne- 
gan’s wild yelp of delighted greeting would have 
told as much. Marian promptly joined the hila- 
rious race to the pier. The commodore, crisp and 


1 12 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


blinding-white in his starchy duck, stood at his 
launch wheel, majestic as if he stood on the bridge 
of an ocean liner. But Mrs. McCloskey, a dainty, 
soft-eyed, little old lady, with cheeks like Scotch 
roses, and silky curls white as dandelion down 
blowing from under her decorous gray bonnet, 
won Marian’s heart at the first glance. She was 
as quaint and gentle and charming as an old-time 
miniature. 

While the boys took the commodore up and 
down the laterals that he might see their progress 
since his last visit, Mrs. McCloskey trailed her 
soft old black silk skirts to the martin-box door 
and begged for a glimpse of the baby. 

“He’s crosser than a prickly little porcupine,” 
protested Sally Lou, handing him over reluctantly. 

“Oh, but he’ll come to me just the minute! 
Won’t you, lamb?” 

And like a lamb Thomas Tucker forgot his sor- 
rows and snuggled happily into her tender arms, 
while his relieved mother bustled about and helped 
Marian to make a generous supply of lemonade; 
for half a dozen carriage loads of visitors were now 
coming up the road. 


THE CONTRACT’S RECEIVING DAY 113 


“ ’Tis amazin’. Where do they all come from? ” 
observed Mrs. McCloskey. “Yet there’s nigh 
three hundred land-owners in this district. And 
the commodore, he passed the word yesterday that 
there’s close on two hundred thousand acres of 
land that will be protected by this one drainage 
contract. Think of that, Miss Marian. Is it not 
grand to know that your brother is giving the 
power of his hands and his brains to such a big, 
helping work as all that?” 

“Why, I suppose so.” Marian spoke absently. 
“And ye will be a help to him, too, I can see 
that.” Mrs. McCloskey put out a hesitating 
little hand in a quaint old silken mitt and patted 
Marian’s fluffy gown. “ ’Tis not everybody makes 
as bould as meself to tell you in so many words of 
your pretty finery. But sure ’tis everybody that 
will appreciate it, an’ be pleased an’ honored 
with the compliment of it. ” 

Marian looked utterly puzzled. 

“You think that I can be a help to Rod? Why, 
I don’t know the least thing about his work. I 

really don’t understand ” 

“Well, aren’t you a magic-maker, Auntie Me- 


1 1 4 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


Closkey!” Sally Lou put down the lemon-squeezer 
and stared. “Look at that precious baby! Sound 
asleep in your lap! While I haven’t been able to 
pacify him for one minute, though I walked and 
sang all night!” 

“’Tis the cruel tooth has come through, I’m 
thinkin’.” Mrs. McCloskey laid the peaceful lit- 
tle porcupine tenderly into his crib. “Now, 
I’ll stay and watch him while you two go and 
meet your guests. I’ll call you the minute he 
chirps. ” 

The two girls hurried to greet their callers, to 
offer them chairs on the shady side of the quarter- 
boat, to serve them with iced tea and lemonade. 
Much to Marian’s surprise, she found herself 
chattering away vigorously and actually enjoying 
it all. As Rod had said, the slow stream that came 
and went all day included all sorts and conditions 
of folk. There were the gracious old clergyman and 
his sweet, motherly wife, who stopped for a pleas- 
ant half-hour, then jogged on across the country 
to his “afternoon meeting,” twelve miles out in 
the lowlands. There were the two brisk young 
plutocrats from the great Kensington stock farm 


THE CONTRACT’S RECEIVING DAY 115 


up-river, who flashed up in a stunning satiny- 
gray French car, for a brief exchange of courtesies. 
There were two of the district commissioners, 
quiet, keen-eyed gentlemen. One of these men, 
Rod told his sister later, was doing valuable ser- 
vice to the community by his experiments in im- 
proving the yield of corn throughout the district. 
The other commissioner was a lawyer of national 
reputation. Mrs. Chrisenberry stopped by, too: 
a brusque little visitor, sitting very stiff and fine 
in her cushioned phaeton, her beady eyes darting 
questions through her shrewd spectacles. Marian, 
feeling very real gratitude, devoted herself to Mrs. 
Chrisenberry. That lady, however, hardly spoke 
till just as she was starting to go. Then she leaned 
forward in her carriage. She fixed Marian with 
a gimlet eye. 

“It’s agreeable to see that you think we district 
folks is folks,” she said, very tartly indeed. “I’d 
some mistrusted the other day, but I guess now 
that you know what’s what. Good-afternoon, 
all.” 

“Well, Sally Lou! Will you tell me what she 
meant?” 


n6 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


Sally Lou nodded wisely. 

“Your pretty dress, I suspect. Didn’t you hear 
Mrs. McCloskey praise it, too?” 

“Oh!” And now Marian’s face was very 
thoughtful indeed. 

Late in the afternoon came the one disagreeable 
episode of the day. 

The drainage district, upon which Roderick 
and Burford were employed, had become part of 
a huge league known as the Central Mississippi 
Drainage Association. This league had recently 
been organized. Its object was the cutting of 
protective ditches on a gigantic scale, and its 
annual expenditures for this work would run 
well past the million mark. Naturally there was 
strong competition between all the great engineer- 
ing firms to win a favorable standing in the eyes 
of this new and powerful corporation. The Breck- 
enridge Company, because of its superior record, 
was easily in the lead. None the less, as Rod had 
remarked a day or so before, it was up to every 
member of the Breckenridge Company, from Breck 
the Great down to the meekest cub engineer, to 
keep that lead. 


THE CONTRACT’S RECEIVING DAY 117 


Burford jeered mildly at Rod for taking his own 
small importance to the company so seriously. 

“ Just you wait and see,” retorted Roderick. 

“Oh, I’ll wait, all right,” laughed Burford. 
To-day, however, he was destined to see; and 
to see almost too clearly for his own peace of 
mind. 

A sumptuous limousine car whirled up the 
muddy road. Its lordly door swung open; down 
stepped a large, autocratic gentleman, in raiment 
of startling splendor, followed by a quiet, courteous 
elderly man. 

“I am Mr. Ellingworth Locke, of New York. 
I am the acting president of the Central Missis- 
sippi Drainage Association,” announced the mag- 
nificent one. “You gentlemen, I take it, are the — 
ah — the junior engineers left in charge by Mr. 
Carlisle? ” 

Roderick and Burford admitted their identity. 

“This is Mr. Crosby, our consulting engineer. 
Now that this district has joined the association, 
it comes under our direct surveillance. Mr. 
Crosby and I desire to go over your laterals and 
get an idea of your work thus far. ” 


n8 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“We are honored.” Burford bowed low and 
welcomed his guests with somewhat flamboyant 
courtesy. He led the way to the duty-launch. 
Roderick followed, bringing the cushions and the 
tarpaulin which the quick-witted Sally Lou hastily 
commanded him to carry aboard for the poten- 
tate’s comfort. 

Of all their guests, that long day, the acting 
president was the sole critic. At every rod of the 
big ditch, at every turn of the laterals, he found 
some petty fault. The consulting engineer, Mr. 
Crosby, followed him about in embarrassed si- 
lence. He was obviously annoyed by his employ- 
er’s rudeness. However, for all Mr. Locke’s 
strictures, it was evident that he could find no 
serious fault with the work. Yet both boys were 
tingling with vexation and chagrin when the regal 
limousine rolled away at last. 

“ What does ail his highness? Did ever you see 
such a beautiful grouch?” Rod mopped his fore- 
head and stared belligerently after the car. 

“ Nothing ails him but a badly swelled head.” 
Burford’s jaw set hard. “The fact of it is, that 
the worshipful Mr. Ellingworth Locke hasn’t two 


THE CONTRACT’S RECEIVING DAY 119 


pins’ worth of practical knowledge of dredging. 
He is a New York banker, and he has no under- 
standing of conditions west of the Hudson. His 
bank is to make the loans for the association’s 
drainage, and he has bought a big tract of land in 
this district. That is why he was elected acting 
president. Do you see?” 

“Yes, that helps to explain things.” 

“So he struts around and tries to pick flaws 
with the most trifling points of our construction, to 
keep us from guessing how little he really knows 
about the big underlying principles. Gentle in- 
nocent, he tries to think he’s an expert!” Bur- 
ford waved a disrespectful muddy paw after the 
flying car. “All that an acting president is good 
for, anyway, is to wear white spats and to put on 
side.” 

“Well, that engineer knows his job.” 

“ Crosby? Yes, he’s an engineer all right. And 
a gentleman, too. Just the same, I’m glad we 
kowtowed to Mr. Locke. His opinion is so in- 
fluential that his approval may mean a tremendous 
advantage to the Breckenridge Company some 
day.” 


i2o THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“Pm hoping that Breckenridge himself will 
come before long and give us a looking over. ” 
“Pm hoping for that myself. Half an hour of 
Breck will swing everything into shape. You 
want to know Breckenridge if ever you get the 
chance, Hallowell. He’s the grandest ever. Just 
to watch him tramp up and down a ditch, great 
big silent figure that he is, and hear him fire off 
those cool, close-mouthed questions of his at you, 
brings you bristling up like a fighting-cock. He’s 
a regular inspiration, I call him.” 

“I’m banking on the chance that I shall know 
him some day.” Rod’s eyes lighted. He re- 
membered the words of his old professor, “To 
work under Breckenridge is not only an advantage 
to any engineer. It is an education in itself.” 

It was nearly six o’clock when their last callers 
arrived. They were not an interesting carriage 
load: a gaunt, silent, middle-aged man; a sallow- 
cheeked young woman, in cheap, showy clothes, 
her rough hands glittering with gaudy rings; and 
a six-year-old girl — a pitiful little ghost of a girl — 
who looked like a frail little shadow against Sally 
Lou’s lusty, rosy two-year-old son. Her warped, 


THE CONTRACT’S RECEIVING DAY 121 


tiny body in its forlorn lace-trimmed pink silk 
dress was braced in pillows in her mother’s arms. 
Her dim black eyes stared listlessly with the in- 
difference of long suffering. 

Marian was always shaken and repelled by the 
sight of pain. But by this time Thomas Tucker 
was awake and loudly demanding his mother; so 
Marian must do her shrinking best, to make the 
new-comers feel themselves welcomed. 

“No, Mamie she don’t drink lemonade. No, 
she don’t want no milk, neither. We’ll just 
set here in the cool and rest a while till pappy 
gets through lookin’ around.” The young, tired 
mother sat down on the little pier. She settled 
the wan little creature carefully into her arms 
again. “No, there’s nothing you can get for her; 
nothing at all. ” 

“Doesn’t she like to look at pictures? I have 
some new magazines, ” ventured Marian. 

“She does like pictures once in a while. Want 
to see what the lady’s got for you, Mamie?” 

Mamie roused herself and looked silently at the 
books that Marian piled before her. Bent on 
pleasing the little wraith, Marian cut out several 


i22 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


lovely ladies, and on a sudden inspiration added 
rosy cheeks from Rod’s tray of colored pencils. 

Those red and blue and purple pencils caught 
Mamie’s listless eye. She even bestirred herself 
to try and draw a portrait or so with her own shaky 
little fingers. 

“ Beats all,” sighed her mother. A little 
pleased color rose in her cheeks. “I haven’t seen 
her take such an interest for months. Not even 
in her dollies. We buy her all the playthings we 
can think of. Her pappy, he don’t ever go to 
town without he up and brings her a whole grist 
of candy and toys and clutter. But we never once 
thought of the pencils for her. Nor of paper dolls, 
either. My, I’m glad we stopped by. And her 
pappy, he’ll be more pleased than words can tell. 
He’s always so heart-set for Mamie to have a little 
fun.” 

“She must take these pencils home with her. 
Rod has a whole boxful.” Marian tied up not 
only the pencils, but a generous roll of Rod’s heavy 
drawing-paper, expressly adapted to making paper 
dolls that would stand alone. The child clutched 
the bundle in her little lean hands without a word 


THE CONTRACT’S RECEIVING DAY 123 


of thanks. But her white little face was eloquent. 
So was her father’s face when he came to carry her 
away, and heard her mother’s story of the new 
pleasure. 

“Well, this day has meant hard work all right, 
even though it was a day of rest from my regular 
work,” said Roderick. He was swinging the 
launch up the canal to the Gates’s Landing. “It’s 
a queer way to spend Sunday, isn’t it, Sis? But it 
seems to be the only way for me just at present. 
And you can be sure that we’re obliged to you, old 
lady, for the way that you’ve held up your end. ” 

“I didn’t mind the day, nor did I mind meeting 
all those people nearly as much as I’d imagined 
that I would,” pondered Marian. “Especially 
the McCloskeys, the dear things! And that poor 
little crippled child, too. I wish I could do some- 
thing more for her. Y-yes, as you say, it was 
pretty hard work. I’m rather tired to-night. But 
the day was well worth while. ” 

But just how worth while that day had been, 
neither Rod nor Marian could know. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE COAL AND THE COMMODORE 

“Ready for breakfast, Miss Hallowell?” Mrs. 
Gates’s pleasant voice summoned her. 

“Just a minute.” Marian loitered at the win- 
dow, looking out at the transformed woods and 
fields. She could hardly believe her eyes. Two 
weeks ago only stark, leafless branches and muddy 
gray earth had stretched before her. But in these 
fourteen days, the magic of early April had 
wrought wonders. The trees stood clothed in 
shining new leaves, thick and luxuriant as a New 
England June. The fields were sheets of living 
green. 

“It doesn’t seem real,” she sighed happily. 
“It isn’t the same country that it was when I first 
came. ” 

“No more are you the same girl.” Mrs. Gates 

nodded approvingly behind the tall steaming 
124 


THE COAL AND THE COMMODORE 125 


coffee-pot. “ My, you were that peaky and piney ! 
But nowadays you’re getting some real red in 
your cheeks, and you eat more like a human being 
and less like a canary-bird. ” 

Marian twinkled. 

“Your brother is gettin’ to be the peaky one, 
nowadays, ” went on Mrs. Gates, with her placid 
frankness. “Seems to me I never saw a boy look 
as beat out as he does, ever since that big cave-in 
on the canal last week. I’m thankful for this 
good weather for him. Maybe he can make up 
for the time they lost digging out the cave-in if 
it stays clear and the creeks don’t rise any higher. 
He’s a real worker, isn’t he? Seems like he’d 
slave the flesh off his bones before he’d let his 
job fall behind. But I don’t like to see him look 
so gaunt and tired. It isn’t natural in a boy like 
him.” 

Marian looked puzzled. 

“Why, Rod is always strong and well.” 

“He’s strong, yes. But even strong folks can 
tire out. Flesh and blood aren’t steel and wire. 
You’d better watch him pretty sharp, now that hot 
weather is coming. He needs it.” 


126 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


Marian pushed back her plate with a frown. 
Her dainty breakfast had suddenly lost its savor. 

“ Watch over Rod ! I should think it was Rod’s 
place to watch over me, instead. And when I have 
been so ill, too!” she said to herself. 

Yet a queer little thorn of anxiety pricked her. 
She called Mr. Finnegan and raced with him 
down through the wet green woods to the canal. 
Roderick stood on the dredge platform, talking to 
the head dredge-runner. He hailed Marian with 
a shout. 

“ You’re just in time to see me off, Sis. I’m 
going to Saint Louis to hurry up our coal ship- 
ment.” 

“ The coal shipment? I thought a barge-load of 
coal was due here yesterday.” 

“Due, yes. But it hasn’t turned up, and we’re 
on our last car-load this minute. That’s serious. 
We’ll have to shut down if I can’t hurry a supply 
to camp within thirty-six hours. ” 

Marian followed him aboard the engineers’ 
house-boat and watched him pack his suit-case. 

“Why are you taking all those time-books, Rod? 
Surely you will not have time to make up your 


THE COAL AND THE COMMODORE 127 


week’s reports during that three-hour trip on the 
train?” 

“ These aren’t my weekly reports. These are 
tabulated operating expenses. President Sturde- 
vant, the head of our company, has just an- 
nounced that he wants us to furnish data for 
every working day. He’s a bit of a martinet, you 
know. He wants everything figured up into shape 
for immediate reference. He says he proposes to 
follow the cost of this job, excavation, fill, every- 
thing, within thirty-six hours of the time when the 
actual work is done. He doesn’t realize that that 
means hours of expert book-keeping, and that we 
haven’t a book-keeper in the camp. So Burford 
and I have had to tackle it, in addition to our 
regular work. And it’s no trifle.” Roderick 
rolled up a formidable mass of notes. There was 
a worried tone in his steady voice. 

“Why doesn’t the company send you a book- 
keeper?” 

“Burford and I are planning to ask for one when 
the president and Breckenridge come to camp on 
their tour of inspection. ” 

“ Could I do some of the work for you, Rod? ” 


128 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“Thank you, Sis, but I’m afraid you’d find it a 
Chinese puzzle. I get tangled up in it myself 
half the time. We must set down every solitary 
item of cost, no matter how trifling; not only 
wages and supplies, but breakdowns, time losses, 
even those of a few minutes; then calculate our 
average, day by day; then plot a curve for each 
week’s work, showing the cost of the contract for 
that week, and set it against our yardage record 
for that week. Then verify it, item by item, and 
send it in. ” 

“All tied up in beautiful red-tape bow-knots, I 
suppose, ” added Marian, with a sniff. She poked 
gingerly into the mass of papers. “The idea of 
adding book-keeping to your twelve-hour shift as 
superintendent! And in this stuffy, noisy little 
box!” She looked impatiently around the close 
narrow state-room. The ceiling was not two feet 
above her head; the hot morning sunlight beat 
on the flat tin roof of the house-boat and dazzled 
through the windows. “How can you work here? 
— or sleep, either?” 

Rob rubbed his hand uncertainly across his eyes. 

“I don’t sleep much, for a fact. Too hot. 


THE COAL AND THE COMMODORE 129 

Sometimes I drop off early, but the men always 
wake me at midnight when the last shift goes off 
duty. ” 

“But the laborers are all across on their own 
quarter-boat. They don’t come aboard your 
house-boat?” 

“No, but the quarter-boat is only fifty feet 
away. The cook has their hot supper ready at 
twelve, and they lark over it, and laugh and shout 
and cut up high-jinks, like a pack of school-boys. 
I wouldn’t mind, only I can’t get to sleep again. 
I lie there and mull over the contract, you see. 
I can’t help it. ” 

“Why don’t you come up to the Gates farm- 
house and sleep there?” 

“ I couldn’t think of that. It’s too far away. I 
must stay right here and keep my eye on the work, 
every minute. You have no idea what a dan- 
gerously narrow margin of time we have left; 
’specially for those north laterals, you know, Sis. ” 
His voice grew sharp and anxious. Marian looked 
at him keenly. For the first time she saw the 
dull circles under his eyes, the drawn, tired lines 
around his steady mouth. 


130 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 

Then she glanced up the ditch. High on its 
green stilts, Sally Lou’s perky little martin-box 
caught her eye. 

“I have it, Rod! Tell some of your laborers to 
build a cabin for you, like the Burfords’! Then 
I’ll come down and keep house for you. ” 

Roderick shrugged his shoulders. 

“I can’t spare a solitary laborer from the con- 
tract, Marian; not for a day. We’re short- 
handed as it is. No, I’ll stay where I am. I’m 
doing well enough. Steam up, Mulcahy? Good- 
by, Sis. Back to-morrow!” 

Marian watched the launch till it disappeared in 
the green mist of the willows. Then she sat down 
to her brother’s desk and began to sort the clutter 
of papers. But sorting them was not an easy 
matter. To her eyes they were only a bewilder- 
ing tangle. Marian knew that she possessed an 
inborn knack at figures, and it piqued her to find 
that she could not master Roderick’s accounts at 
the first glance. She worked on and on doggedly. 
The little state-room grew hot and close; the dull 
throb of the dredge machinery and the noisy voices 
from without disturbed her more and more. 


THE COAL AND THE COMMODORE 13 1 


At last she sprang up and swept the whole mass 
into her hand-bag. Then she ran up the hill to 
the martin-box. 

Sally Lou, very fresh and cool in pink dimity, 
sat in her screened nest, with the babies playing 
on the scrubbed floor. She nodded in amused 
sympathy at Marian’s portentous armful. 

“ Aren’t those records a dismal task! Yes, I’ve 
found a way to sift them, though it took me a long 
time to learn. Start by adding up the time-book 
accounts; verify each laborer’s hours, and see 
whether his pay checks correspond to his actual 
working time. Roderick has fifty men on his 
shift, so that is no small task. Then add up 
his memoranda of time made by the big dredge; 
and also the daily record of the two little dredges 
up at the laterals. Then run over the steward’s 
accounts and see whether they check with his 
bills ” 

Marian stared at Sally Lou, astonished. 

“Well, but Sally Lou! Think how much time 
that will mean! Why, I would have to spend all 
afternoon on the time-books alone.” 

Sally Lou raised her yellow head and looked at 


i 3 2 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


Marian very steadily. A tiny spark glinted in 
her brown eyes. 

“Well, what if it does take all afternoon? 
Have you anything better to do?” 

There was a minute of silence. Then Marian’s 
cheeks turned rather pink. 

“I suppose not. But it is horridly tedious 
work, Sally Lou. On such a warm day, too. ” 

“It certainly is.” Sally Lou’s voice was quite 
dry. She caught up Thomas Tucker, who was 
trying laboriously to feed Mr. Finnegan with a 
large ball of darning cotton. “You’d find it even 
more tedious if you were obliged to work at it 
evenings, as your brother does. Can’t you stay 
to lunch, Marian? We’ll love to have you; 
won’t we, babies?” 

“Thank you, no. Mrs. Gates will expect me at 
home.” 

Marian walked back through the woods, her 
head held high. The glint in Sally Lou’s eyes had 
been a bit of a challenge. Again she felt her 
cheeks flush hot, with a queer puzzled vexation. 

“I’ll show her that I can straighten Rod’s 
papers, no matter how muddled they are!” she 


THE COAL AND THE COMMODORE 133 

said to herself, tartly. And all that warm spring 
afternoon she toiled with might and main. 

Roderick, meanwhile, was spending a hard, dis- 
couraging day. Arriving at Saint Louis, he found 
the secretary of the coal-mining company at his 
office. Eager and insistent, he poured out his 
urgent need of the promised barge-load of coal. 
The consignment was now a week overdue. The 
dredges had only a few hundred bushels at hand; 
in less than forty-eight hours the engines must shut 
down, unless he could get the fuel to camp. 

“ You can’t be any more disturbed by this crisis 
than I am, Mr. Hallowell, ” the secretary assured 
him. “ Owing to a strike at the mines we have 
been forced to cancel all deliveries. I can’t let 
you have a single ton. ” 

Roderick gasped. 

“But our dredges! We don’t dare shut down. 
Our contract has a chilled-steel time-lock, sir, 
with a heavy forfeit. We must not run over our 
date limits. We’ve got to have that coal!” 

“You may be able to pick up a few tons from 
small dealers,” said the secretary, turning back to 


134 the hallowell partnership 


his desk. “You’ll be buying black diamonds in 
good earnest, for the retail price has gone up thirty 
per cent since the news came of the mines strike. 
Wish you good luck, Mr. Hallowell. Sorry that 
is all that I can do for you. ” 

Roderick lost no time. He bought a business 
directory and hailed a taxicab. For six hours he 
drove from one coal-dealer’s office to another. 
At eight o’clock that night he reached his hotel, 
tired in every bone, but in royal high spirits. 
Driblet by driblet, and paying a price that fairly 
staggered him, he had managed to buy over four 
hundred tons. 

“That will keep us going till the strike is set- 
tled,” he told Burford over the long-distance. 

“Bully for you!” returned Burford, jubilant. 
“But how will you bring it up to camp?” 

“Oh, the railroad people have promised empties 
on to-morrow morning’s early freight to Grafton. 
Then we can carry it to camp on our own barges. 
I shall come up on that freight myself. I shall not 
risk losing sight of that coal. Mind that. ” 

At five the next morning Roderick went down 
to the freight yards. His coal wagons were al- 


THE COAL AND THE COMMODORE 135 


ready arriving. But not one of the promised 
“empties” could he find. 

“There is a mistake somewhere,” said the yard- 
master. “Can’t promise you a solitary car for 
three days, anyway. Traffic is all behindhand. 
You’d better make a try at head-quarters.” 

“I have no time to waste at head-quarters,” 
retorted Rod. He was white with anger and 
chagrin. This ill luck was a bolt from a clear sky. 
“I’ll go down to the river front and hire a barge 
and a tow-boat. I’ll get that coal up to camp to- 
morrow if I have to carry it in my suit-case. ” 

His hunt for a barge proved a stern chase, but 
finally he secured a large flat-boat at a reasonable 
rental. But after searching the river front for 
miles, he found only one tow-boat that could be 
chartered. The tow’s captain, noting Roderick’s 
anxiety, and learning that he represented the great 
Breckenridge Company, promptly declared that 
he would not think of doing the two-days’ towing 
for less than five hundred dollars. 

“Five hundred dollars for two days’ towing! 
And I have already paid three times the mine 
price for my coal!” Roderick groaned inwardly. 


136 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 

Suddenly his eye caught two trim red stacks 
and a broad familiar bow not fifty yards away. It 
was the little packet, the Lucy Lee. She was just 
lowering her gang-plank, making ready to take 
on freight for her trip up-stream. 

‘Til hail the Lucy. Maybe the captain can 
tell me where to find another tow-boat. Ahoy, 
the Lucy! Is your captain aboard? Ask him 
to come on deck and talk to Hallowell, of the 
Breckenridge Company, will you?” 

“The captain has not come down yet, sir. But 
our pilot, Commodore McCloskey, is here. Will 
you talk with him? ” 

“Will I talk to the commodore ? I should hope 
so!” Rod’s strained face broke into a joyful grin. 
He could have shouted with satisfaction when 
Commodore McCloskey, trim as a gimlet in 
starchy white duck, strolled down the gang-plank 
and gave him a friendly hand. 

“Sure, I don’t wonder ye’re red-hot mad,” he 
said, with twinkling sympathy. “Five hundred 
dollars for two days’ tow! ’Tis no better than a 
pirate that tow-boat captain is, sure. But come 
with me. I have a friend at court that can give 


THE COAL AND THE COMMODORE 137 

ye a hand, maybe. Hi, boy ! Is Captain Lathrop, 
of the Queen , round about? ” 

“The Queen? Why, her captain is the very 
man who demanded the five hundred dollars!” 
blurted Rod. 

At that moment the captain’s head popped 
from the cabin door. He stared at Roderick. He 
stared at Commodore McCloskey. Then he had 
the grace to duck wildly back, with a face sheep- 
ish beyond words to describe. 

“Well, Captain Lathrop!” Commodore Mc- 
Closkey’s voice rang merciless and clear. “Tell 
me the truth. Is it yourself that’s turned high- 
way robber? Five hundred dollars for twenty 
hours’ tow! Sure, ye must be one of thim high 
fin-an-ciers we read about in the papers. Why 
not make it five hundred dollars per ton? Then 
ye could sell the Queen and buy yourself a Cu- 
narder for a tow-boat instead.” 

Captain Lathrop squirmed. 

“How should I know he was a friend of yours, 
commodore? I’ll take his coal all the way to 
camp, and gladly, for three hundred, seein’ as it’s 
a favor to you. ” 


i 3 8 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“For three hundred, is it?” The commodore 
began a further flow of eloquence. But Rod 
caught his arm. 

“ Three hundred will be all right. And I’m 
more obliged to you, commodore, than I can say. 
Now I’m off. If ever I can do you a good turn, 
mind you give me the chance!” 

It was late the next night when Roderick 
reached the camp landing with his precious black 
diamonds. He was desperately tired, muddy, and 
begrimed with smoke and coal-dust, hungry as a 
wolf, and hilarious with relief at his hard-earned 
success. Marian, Sally Lou, and Burford were all 
waiting for him at the little pier. Sally Lou 
dragged him up to the martin-box for a late sup- 
per. Afterward Marian, who was to spend the 
night with Sally Lou, walked back with him to his 
house-boat. 

“ Yes, yes, I’m all right, Sis. Don’t fidget over 
me so.” Roderick stepped into his state-room 
and dropped down into his desk chair. “Whew! 
I’m thankful to get back. I could go to sleep 
standing up, if it wasn’t for making up the records 
for President Sturdevant. Run away now, that’s 



RANG MERCILESS AND CLEAR 





* 





THE COAL AND THE COMMODORE 139 


a good girl, and let me straighten my accounts. 
Then I can go to bed. ” 

Even as he spoke Rod’s glance swept his desk. 
Instead of the heaped disorder of the day before, 
he saw now rows of neatly docketed papers. He 
gave a whistle of surprise. 

“ Who has been overhauling my desk? Burford? 
Why — why, did you do this for me, sister? Well, on 
my word, you are just the very best ever.” His big 
fingers gripped Marian’s arm and gave her a grate- 
ful little shake. “ You’ve squared up every single 
account, haven’t you ! And your figuring is always 
accurate. This means two hours’ extra sleep for 
me. Maybe you think I won’t enjoy ’em!” 

“I might have been keeping your accounts for 
you all these weeks, ” returned Marian. She was 
a little mortified by Roderick’s astonished grati- 
tude. “It is not hard work for me. I really en- 
joyed doing it.” 

“Maybe you think I don’t enjoy having 
you do it!” Rod chuckled contentedly. “I’ve 
dreaded those accounts all day. Now I shall 
sleep the sleep of the loafer who has let his sister 
do his work for him. Good-night, old lady!” 


i 4 o THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


Marian tucked herself comfortably into her 
corner of the martin-box, but not to sleep. Try 
her best, she could not banish Rod’s tired face from 
her mind. Neither could she forget the look of 
his little state-room. True, she had made it 
daintily fresh and neat. But the tiny box was hot 
and stuffy at best. What could she do to make 
Rod’s quarters more comfortable? 

At last she sat up with a whispered exclamation. 

“Good! I’ll try that plan. Perhaps it won’t 
do after all. But it cannot hurt to try. And if 
my scheme can make Rod the least bit more com- 
fortable, then the trying will be well worth while!” 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE BURGOO 

Very early the next morning, Marian set to 
work upon her brilliant plan for Roderick’s com- 
fort. The coast was clear for action. Both Rod- 
erick and Ned Burford had gone up the canal 
to oversee the excavation at the north laterals. 
Sally Lou had packed Mammy and the babies 
into the buckboard and had driven away to 
the nearest farm-house for eggs and butter. So 
Marian had a clear field. And she made eager 
use of every moment. 

Perhaps two hundred yards from the canal 
bank, set well up on a little knoll where it could 
catch every passing breeze, stood a broad wooden 
platform. High posts, built to hold lanterns, were 
set at the four corners and half-way down each 
side. 

“The young folks of the district built that plat- 
form for their picnic dances,” Burford had told 


142 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


Marian. “But this year our dredges have tom 
up this whole section and have made the creek 
banks so miry and disagreeable that no picnic 
parties will come this way till the contract is fin- 
ished and the turf has had time to grow again.” 

Marian measured the platform with a calcu- 
lating eye. 

“It is built of matched boards, as tight and 
sound as if they had put it up yesterday. It will 
make a splendid floor for Rod’s house. But 
when it comes to building the house itself — that’s 
the question. ” 

The contract supplies, she knew, were kept in 
a store-room built astern of Roderick’s house-boat. 
For a hot, tiresome hour she poked and pried 
through high-piled hogsheads and tiers of boxes, 
hoping that she might find a tent. But there was 
no such good fortune for her. She dragged out 
bale after bale of heavy new canvas. But every 
one of the scores of tents provided by the company 
was already pitched, to form the summer village 
occupied by the levee laborers. At last, quite 
vexed and impatient, she gave up her search. 

“Although, if I had any knack at all, I could sew 


THE BURGOO 


i43 


up a tent from these yards on yards of canvas,” 
she reflected. 

She carried one bolt of cloth on deck and un- 
rolled it. 

“This is splendid heavy canvas. It is just the 
solid, water-proof sort that the fishermen at the 
lake last summer used for walls and roof of their 
‘ open-faced camp/ as they called it. Now, I won- 
der. Why can’t I lash long strips of canvas to the 
four posts of the platform for walls; then fasten 
heavy wires from one post to another and lash a 
slanting canvas roof to that! I can canopy it 
with mosquito-bar — a double layer — for there are 
dozens of yards of netting here. It would be a 
ridiculously funny little coop, I know that. But 
it would be far cooler and quieter than the boat. 
I believe Rod would like it. Anyway, we’ll see!” 

Jacobs, the commissary man, came aboard a 
few minutes later with a basket of clean linen. He 
looked at Marian, already punching eyelet-holes 
in the heavy duck, with friendly concern. 

“Best let me give you a lift at that job, miss,” 
he urged, when Marian had told him her plans. 
“I have an hour off, and I shall be pleased to help. 


144 THE hallowell partnership 


if you will permit me. I’m an old sailor and I 
have my needle and palm in my kit. That kind 
of fancy work is just pastime to me. Indeed, I’d 
enjoy doing anything, if it’s for Mr. Hallowell. 
We ’ve never had a better boss, that’s certain. You 
lace those strips of duck, then I’ll hang them for 
you. We’ll curtain off just a half of the platform. 
That will leave the other half for a fine open porch. 
We’ll have this house built in two jiffies. Then 
I’ll put Mr. Hallowell’s canvas cot and his desk 
and his chair into place, all ready; so when he 
comes home to-night he will find himself moved 
and settled.” 

It took longer than two jiffies to lash up the can- 
vas shack, to hang mosquito bar, and to move 
Roderick’s simple furniture. Returning from 
their drive, Sally Lou and Mammy Easter hur- 
ried to help; and, thanks to many willing hands, 
the tiny new abode was finished by afternoon; 
even to the brackets for Rod’s lamp, which 
Jacobs screwed into a corner post, and the rack 
for his towels. 

At six o’clock, Roderick, fagged out and spat- 
tered with mud, came down the canal. He would 


THE BURGOO 


i45 

have gone directly aboard his house-boat if Marian 
had not called him ashore. 

“March up here and see my out-door sitting- 
room, ” she commanded, with laughing eyes. 

“ Oh, you and Sally Lou have made a play-house 
of that platform? That’s all very nice. But wait 
till I can scrub up and swallow a mouthful of sup- 
per, Sis. My skiff tipped over with me up the canal, 
and I’m soaking wet, and dead tired besides.” 

“Oh, no, Rod. Please come up right away. I 
can’t wait, Slow-Coach. You really must see!” 

Roderick was well used to Marian’s imperious 
whims. Reluctantly he climbed the slippery 
bank. Obediently he poked his head past the flap 
which Marian held back for him. 

There he saw his own cot spread white and 
fresh under its cool screen; his tidy desk; and 
even a “shower-bath,” which clever Jacobs had 
contrived from a tiny force-pump and a small gal- 
vanized tank, borrowed from the company’s 
store-room. 

For a long minute he stared about him without 
one word. Then his tired face brightened to a 
glow of incredulous delight. 


i 4 6 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“Marian Hallowell! Did you rig up this whole 
contrivance, all for me? Well!” He sank down 
on the cot with a sigh of infinite satisfaction. 
“You certainly are the best sister I ever had, old 
lady. First you take my book-keeping off my 
hands. Next you build me a brand-new house, 
where I can sleep — whew! Won’t I sleep like 
a log to-night, in all this quiet and coolness! On 
my word, I don’t believe I could stand up to my 
work, Sis, if you didn’t help me out as you do. ” 
Marian grew radiant at his pleasure. 

“Building it was no end of fun, Rod. I never 
enjoyed anything more. ” 

“Only I hope you haven’t tired yourself out,” 
said her brother, suddenly anxious. “You haven’t 
the strength to work like this. ” 

“Nonsense! You don’t realize how much 
stronger I am, Rod. ” 

“You surely do look a hundred per cent better 
than you did a month ago. ” Roderick looked at 
her with keen satisfaction. “But you must not 
overtire yourself. ” 

“Don’t be so fussy, brother. It was just a 
trifle, anyway.” 


THE BURGOO 


i47 


“It won't mean a trifle to me. Quiet and sleep 
will give me a chance to get my head above water 
and breathe. Hello, neighbors!" For Sally Lou 
and Ned were poking their unabashed heads 
through the fly. “ Come in and see my new man- 
sion. Guess I’ll have to give a house-warming to 
celebrate. What do you say?" 

“There’s a celebration already on the way," 
laughed Burford. “Commodore McCloskey has 
just called me up on the long-distance. He says 
that he and Mrs. McCloskey will stop at the camp 
bright and early to-morrow morning to escort your 
sister and Sally Lou to the Barry County burgoo. 
I accepted the invitation for both you girls, for 
a ‘ burgoo, ’ whatever it means, sounds like a jolly 
lark; especially since the commodore is to be your 
host. But I’ll admit that I’m puzzled. What 
do you suppose a burgoo may be?" 

The four looked at each other. 

“It sounds rather like a barbecue," ventured 
Sally Lou. 

“Hoots! It is far too early in the spring for a 
barbecue. " 

“Burgoo? Barbecue ?” Marian spoke the mys- 


148 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


tic words over, bewildered. “ What is a barbecue, 
pray? Two such grim, ferocious words I never 
heard. ” 

“A barbecue is a country-side picnic, where the 
company unite to buy a huge piece of beef; 
sometimes a whole ox. Then they roast it in a 
trench floored with hot stones. The usual time 
for a barbecue is in August. Then they add roast- 
ing ears and new potatoes to the beef, and have a 
dinner fit for a king. ” 

“ Or for an ogre, ” returned Marian. “ It sounds 
like a feast for giants. Yet a burgoo sounds even 
fiercer and more barbaric. I shall ask the com- 
modore what it means, the minute he comes. 
Wasn’t he a dear to think of taking us?” 

Bright and early, even as he had promised, 
Mr. McCloskey’s trig little launch puffed up to 
the camp landing. The commodore, arrayed as 
Solomon in snowy linen, a red tie, and a large 
Panama, waved greeting. Beside him sat Mrs. 
McCloskey, her sweet little old face beaming 
under her crisp frilled sunbonnet. 

The two girls stepped aboard, with Finnegan 
prancing joyfully after. For to-day the Burford 


THE BURGOO 


149 


babies were to stay at home with Mammy, while 
Finnegan was to attend the burgoo, a specially 
bidden guest. 

“And now, Mr. McCloskey! Tell us quick! 
What may a burgoo be? ” 

“A burgoo?” Commodore McCloskey reflected. 
“Well, then, so ye don't know a burgoo by ex- 
perience? Wherever was ye brought up? A 
burgoo is a burgoo, sure. 'Tis the only word in 
the English language that describes it. 'Tis sack- 
races, an' pole-climbin', an' merry-go-rounds, an' 
pink limonade, an’ a brass band, an' kettles full of 
b'iled chicken an' gravy, an' more mortial things 
to eat than the tongue of man can name. Ye 
must see it to understand the real po’try of it. 
For the half of it could not be told to you." 

The commodore was quite right. The burgoo 
was all that he had claimed, and more. At least 
two hundred people, gay in their Sunday best, had 
already gathered at the county picnic grounds, a 
beautiful open woodland several miles up the 
Illinois River. Vendors of candy and popcorn, 
toy balloons and pink lemonade, shouted their 
wares. A vast merry-go-round wheezed and 


1 5 o THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


sputtered; the promised brass band awoke the 
river echoes. And, swung in a mighty rank 
above a row of camp-fires cleverly built in a 
broad shallow trench, the burgoo kettles sizzled 
and steamed. 

“Burgoo,” the girls soon learned, is the local 
name for a delicious stew of chicken and bacon 
and vegetables, cooked slowly for hours, then 
served in wooden bowls with huge dill pickles 
and corn pone. Sally Lou, housekeeper born, 
wheedled the head cook, a courteous, grizzled 
old negro, into giving her the recipe. Marian, 
chuckling inwardly, heard his painstaking reply. 

“Yes’um. I kin tell you jest how to go about 
makin’ burgoo. First you want sixteen, maybe 
twenty, pounds of bacon, cut tolerable fine. Then 
four dozen chickens won’t be too many. Start 
your meats a-b’ilin’. Then peel your taters — I 
used three bushel for this batch. Then put in 
tomatoes. I reckon two dozen cans might do, 
though three would be better. Then cabbage, an’ 
beans, an’ onions, if you like. Two dozen head 
of cabbage is about right. An’ two bushels of 
beans- — ” 


THE BURGOO 


151 

Just then Sally Lou dropped her pencil in 
despair. 

“I’ll be no more than a head of cabbage my- 
self, if I keep on trying to reduce this recipe to 
the needs of two people, ” she groaned in despera- 
tion. “Come along, Marian, let’s climb on the 
merry-go-round a while and see if it won’t clear 
my addled brain. ” 

The merry-go-round proved delightfully thrill- 
ling, especially to Mr. Finnegan, who rode round 
and round in a gilded sea-shell, barking himself 
hoarse in dizzy ecstasy. 

Just before noon the crowd, now astonishingly 
large, gathered at the little running track to watch 
the sports. First came the sack-races; then the 
pole-climbing; then the potato-race. Finnegan, 
by this time delirious with excitement, had to be 
held down by main force to discourage his wild 
ambition to take an active part in each event. 
Last on the programme came the greased-pig race. 

Now, the greased-pig race dates back a hundred 
years and more, to the days when the Kentucky 
pioneers met for their rare frolics of house-raising 
or corn-husking. It is a quaint old sport, very 


i 5 2 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


rough, very grimy and breathless, very ridicu- 
lously funny. A lively little pig is chosen and 
greased with melted tallow from head to tail. 
Then he is set free on the running-track. Half a 
minute later, the starting-gun booms the signal 
for his hunters to dash in pursuit. The winner 
must capture piggy with his bare hands and carry 
the squirming, slippery armful back to the judges’ 
stand. If piggy escapes en route, the race must be 
run over again from the very start. 

The competitors are boys and young men. 
Only the fleet-footed can hope for a chance at 
success. But even as the starter stood calling the 
race through his big red megaphone, a tall, elderly 
man shouldered up to their group and hailed Mr. 
McCloskey. 

“ Good-day, commodore! You’re here to see 
the greased-pig race? My faith, do you re- 
member the race that we two ran, down in Pike 
County in ’63?” 

The commodore beamed at his old neighbor. 

“ ’Deed an’ I do. And it was meself that capt- 
ured that elegant pig, I remember. ” 

“You did that. But it was by accident en- 


THE BURGOO 


i53 


tirely. For I had all but laid my hand on the 
pig when you snatched it from under my grasp. 
I’ve grudged ye that pig ever since. ” 

The little commodore’s eyes snapped. He 
bristled from the crest of his white head to the 
toes of his polished boots. His voice took on an 
ominously silver tone. 

“By my word, Em sorry to learn that that 
small pig has stood between us all these years, 
Mister Jennings. If it could give you satisfac- 
tion, Ed beg you to run that race over again with 
me. Or, we might race each other in the con- 
test that is just about to take place. What do 
ye say?” 

For a minute, the astounded Mr. Jennings found 
nothing whatever to say. 

“Now, commodore!” protested gentle Mrs. Mc- 
Closkey, round-eyed with reproach. “You’d not 
think of runnin’ a half mile this hot noon in the face 
of all your friends an’ neighbors, an’ all for one small 
pig! And you seventy last month, an’ that suit 
of clothes bought new from Saint Louis not the 
fortnight ago!” 

“You don’t understand, Mary. I’d run the race 


154 THE hallowell partnership 


if there was no pig at all under consideration, so 
it would give my friend Mister Jennings peace of 
mind,” said the little commodore hotly. “What 
do ye say, sir? Will you join me, an’ prove once 
more which one of us is the rale winner ?” 

Very red and disconcerted, Mr. Jennings stood 
on one foot, then the other, in a torture of indeci- 
sion. Then he threw off his coat. 

“I’ve never taken a dare like that yet, McClos- 
key. And I don’t begin now. Come along.” 

“Commodore !” Poor Mrs. McCloskey’s 
shocked voice pursued him. But the commodore 
would not hear. Mr. Jennings was already clam- 
bering the rail to the running-track. Lightly as a 
boy, the commodore vaulted after him. Shoul- 
der to shoulder the two joined the group before 
the judges’ stand. 

There ran a ripple of question through the 
crowd, then a storm of delighted cheers and 
laughter. Mr. Jennings wriggled in sheepish tor- 
ment. The commodore, sparkling and debonair, 
bowed to the throng and hung his Panama on a 
fence-post. 

Then down the running-track fled a small, 


THE BURGOO 


I 5S 

shiny black object, squealing in glad escape. In- 
stantly a shot crashed; then came a thundering 
shout: 

“ Ready— go!” 

With whoops and yells the group of runners 
raced away down the track. The commodore 
kept well in the lead. He ran as lightly and as 
easily as did the boys that forged alongside him. 
Mr. Jennings puffed and pounded farther in the 
rear at every turn. They made the first lap of the 
race. At the second turn the commodore, only 
third from the lead, waved his hand to Mrs. Mc- 
Closkey and the girls with a flourish of mischiev- 
ous triumph. Marian and Sally Lou, tearful and 
choking with delight, clasped hands and swayed 
together in helpless rapture. Thus completely 
absorbed in the spectacle, they let go of Mr. 
Finnegan’s leash. 

That was all that Finnegan wanted. With one 
glad yelp he hurled himself through the fence and 
bounced like a ball, straight into the midst of the 
fray. Far in advance fled a shiny black object. 
Finnegan knew his duty. The commodore was 
hurrying to catch that object. It was Finnegan’s 


156 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


part to aid in that capture at all costs. Yelping 
madly, he tore away down the track. 

“Oh, it’s Finnegan! Oh, the little villain! If 
I had only left him at home!” Poor Marian 
strove to call him back. But against the uproar 
of the crowd her voice could not make a sound. 
“Oh, the naughty little sinner, he will catch that 
pig himself and spoil the race for everybody. 
Look, Sally Lou! He has almost caught up with 
the pig this minute!” 

Even as she spoke, Finnegan, running at top 
speed, shot ahead of the fleeing pig. Then, with 
a frenzied bark, he whirled and charged straight 
at the prize. 

This front attack was too much for any pig’s 
self-control. Not content with galloping murder- 
ously at his heels, his pursuers had set this fero- 
cious brute to destroy him! With a squeal of 
mortal panic the little fellow turned right-about 
and bolted. Shrieking, he dashed back, straight 
into the crowd of runners. 

“Oh — oh! He’s right under the commodore’s 
hand! Oh, if he wasn’t so slippery — Look, 
quick, Marian!” 


THE BURGOO 


i57 


“Well, will you look at that now!” Mrs. Mc- 
Closkey’s mild voice rose in a laugh of triumph. 
“Sure, I never yet knew the commodore to fail 
if once he’d set his head to do a thing!” 

“If only he can keep fast hold of the pig till he 
reaches the judges’ stand,” whispered Sally Lou. 
All three gazed in pale suspense at the commodore, 
now striding gayly up the race-track, the pig 
squirming and squealing wildly in his arms. 

“I’m mistrustin’ that myself,” said Mrs. Mc- 
Closkey, nervously, “for the little animal is not 
so convenient to hold, bein’ he’s so glassy smooth. 
But trust the commodore. He’ll not fail, now.” 

The commodore did not fail. Calm and majes- 
tic, as if he strode a quarter-deck, he paced down 
the track and halted before the judges’ stand, his 
shrieking prize held high. As the umpire bent 
forward to give him the champion’s blue ribbon, 
the crowd broke loose. No Olympic victor ever 
received his laurel in the face of a more enthusi- 
astic tumult. 

“I give up,” puffed Mr. Jennings, fanning him- 
self with his hat. “You caught that pig fair an’ 
square, commodore. The honors are yours.” 


158 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“Tut, tut, ’twas no great matter, ” declared the 
commodore modestly, as the girls heaped him 
with praises. “ ’Twas just a moment’s divarsion. 
And it took no skill whatever, though I will own 
that to carry the little felly back to the judges’ 
stand demanded some effort on me part. You 
will observe that a pig furnishes but few hand- 
holds, particularly when he’s that slippery and 
excited-like. Yes, Mary, perhaps we’d best be 
startin’ home, as it’s so near sundown. ” 

“Well, but these girls must not go home empty- 
handed,” urged Mrs. McCloskey. “Think of 
your poor boys, who could not take a day off for 
the burgoo ! We must carry home a taste for them. 
Go to yonder booth and buy a market-basket, 
commodore. Then we’ll pack in a few samples. ” 
Marian and Sally Lou looked on in silent amaze 
while Mrs. McCloskey packed the few samples, 
including a tall jar of the delicious burgoo, a daz- 
zling array of cookies and preserves, and a fat 
black-currant pie. Meanwhile the commodore 
was fitting his treasured pig neatly into a small 
crate, much to the dismay of the pig and the 
keen joy of a large group of on-lookers. 


THE BURGOO 


i59 


At last basket and crate were made ready. 
Tired out by their long, absurd, delightful day, the 
party settled themselves aboard the commodore’s 
launch and started home. The trip downstream 
to camp was made in rapid time. It was just 
dusk when they reached their own landing. 
Roderick and Ned Burford had heard the commo- 
dore’s whistle and were waiting to help them 
ashore. 

“What sort of a day was it, Sis?” 

“Yes, tell us, quick, if you had any fun. We 
have put in a gruelling day of it here,” added 
B urf ord. ‘ ‘ Three break-downs on the little dredge 
and a threatened cave-in on the first lateral! Go 
on and tell us something cheerful. ” 

Marian and Sally Lou stole a glance backward. 
The commodore was just putting his boat into 
mid-stream. He was safely out of earshot. With 
almost tearful laughter the two girls poured out 
the story of the day. 

“You brought home the best of the day to us,” 
said Ned, as they spread the “samples” on a tiny 
deck table, picnic-fashion. “We fellows only laid 
off our levee shifts a few minutes ago. We’re 


160 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


rushing that construction before the creeks rise 
any higher. So neither of us has eaten a mouth- 
ful since noon. This luncheon will taste like 
manna in the desert. S’pose Mammy Easter 
would make us a pot of coffee, Sally Lou? Then 
we could ask no more.” 

“I’ll go to the cabin and coax her to do it. I 
want a peep at the babies, anyway. ” 

Sally Lou sprang up and started toward the 
gangway. At the cabin door she stopped short. 
Her voice rang out, a frightened cry. 

“Ned Burford! Come quick! What is that 
blazing light away up the ditch? Is it — Oh, 
it is one of the boats — it is the big dredge ! And 
it is on fire!” 

Ned Burford leaped up. His startled voice 
echoed Sally Lou’s cry. 

“Hallo well! It’s the big dredge, the giant Gar- 
rison! Wake up and pitch in. Hurry!” 

Days afterward Marian would try to recall 
just what happened during those wild moments; 
but the whole scene would flicker before her mem- 
ory, a dizzy blur. She remembered Roderick’s 
shout of alarm; the rush of the day-shift men from 


THE BURGOO 


161 


their tents; the clatter of the racing engine as 
Rod pushed them into the launch, then sent the 
little boat flying away up the canal. Then, 
directly ahead, she could see that dense black pil- 
lar of smoke rising straight up from the dredge 
deck, shot through with spurts of flame. 

Burford’s half-strangled voice came back to 
them as he groped his way across the deck. 

“It’s a pile of burning waste, right here by the 
capstan. Bring the chemical-extinguishers . . . 
no time to wait for the hose. ... Wet your coats, 
boys, and let’s pound her out. . . . Whe-ew! 
I’m ’most strangled. . . . Sally Lou Burford! 
You clear out ! You and Marian, too. Go away, 
I tell you. This is no place for you!” 

Sally Lou and Marian stood doggedly in line 
passing the buckets of water which one of the 
laborers was dipping up from over the side. 
Roderick, stolid as a rock, stood close by that 
choking column of smoke and flame and dashed 
on the water. Burford rushed about, everywhere 
at once, half mad with excitement, yet giving 
orders with unswerving judgment. 

“ Can’t you start the pumping engine, boys? 


162 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


Swing out that emergency hose, quick. There 
you are! Now turn that stream on those oil 
barrels yonder — and keep it there. Start the big 
force-pump and train a stream on the deck near 
the engines. The fire mustn’t spread to the 
hoisting-gear. Mind that. Mulcahy, give me 
that chemical-tank. Wet my handkerchief and 
tie it over my mouth, Sally Lou. No, give me 
your scarf. That’s better. I’m going to wade 
right in. Aha! See that?” 

The smoke column wavered, thinned. A shower 
of water, soot, and chemicals drenched everybody 
on deck. Nobody noticed the downpour, for the 
smoke column was sinking with every moment. 

Burford staggered back, half smothered. The 
extinguisher fell from his hand. But the force- 
pumps were working now at full blast. Stream 
after stream of water poured on the fire, then 
flooded across the deck. Two minutes more of 
frantic, gasping work and not a spark remained — 
nothing save the heap of quenched, still smoking 
waste. 

Dazed, Marian found herself once more on the 
house-boat deck. Ashore the laborers were flock- 


THE BURGOO 


163 


ing back to their tents, laughing and shouting. 
For them it had been a frolic rather than a danger. 
But the four on the house-boat deck looked at 
each other without a word. They were too shaky 
with relief to move or to speak. Sally Lou, the 
steady-willed, dependable Sally Lou, clung trem- 
bling to Marian, who in her turn leaned rather 
weakly against the rail. Roderick, ashen white, 
confronted Burford, who stood absently mopping 
his wet, smarting eyes with Sally Lou’s singed and 
dripping crepe scarf. Suddenly Burford broke the 
tension with a strangled whoop. 

“Our — our daily reports to the company!” 
he gurgled. “President Sturdevant wants every 
day’s detail. Let’s put it all in. ‘ I have the honor 
to report that while your engineers were stoking 
with burgoo and black-currant pie, Garrison 
Dredge Number Three was observed to be on fire. 
Your engineers, assisted by their partners, said 
engineers’ wife and sister, all of whom displayed 
conspicuous bravery, attacked the fire. Thanks 
to their heroic efforts, the conflagration was ex- 
tinguished. I beg further to report that damages 
are confined to one pile of waste, one smooched 


i6 4 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


pink silk scarf, and’” — he passed his hand over 
his smutty forehead — “‘and one pair of eye- 
brows.^ 

“I’m going straight home to bed,” vowed 
Marian, as the laughter died away in exhausted 
chuckles. “This day has brought so many 
thrilling events that it will take me at least a week 
to calm myself down. Do let us hope that noth- 
ing whatever will happen for a while. I’m longing 
for monotony — days, months, ages of monotony, 
at that!” 

And, even as she spoke, there was a shout 
from the pier. Mulcahy came running toward 
them at top speed. 

“Will you look at Mulcahy, sprinting up from 
the ditch! I’ll wager he has some more bad news 
for us. Come, Hallowell. Hurry!” 


CHAPTER IX 


THE MAGIC LEAD-PENCIL 

“Bad news, is it?” puffed Mulcahy. “Indeed, 
sir, I’m sorry to be the one to bring it to you. 
Lateral Four has caved in again.” 

“Lateral Four! The cut where we’ve spent 
more time and work, filling in, than we’ve spent 
anywhere else on the whole ditch!” 

“Yes, Lateral Four. The ungrateful piece of 
fill she is ! And when you have shored up the mar- 
gins with brush, twice over!” 

“How far up is the cave-in, Mulcahy?” 

“Half a mile from the mouth. Right where 
Mr. Ellingworth Locke’s land begins, sir. ” 

“Right on President Locke’s land! Will you 
hear that, Hallowed? And he’s the biggest grum- 
bler in the whole district! And the most powerful 
grumbler, too. Of all the hard luck!” 

“I do hear. And I’m going to get busy.” 
Rod pulled himself together with a grim little 

165 


166 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


chuckle. “IPs an all-night job, Burford. Or 
else we can add one more calamity to our head- 
quarters report. ‘One bad cave-in, on lateral 
draining land owned by H. R. H., the acting 
president of the Central Mississippi Association/ 
Do you see us putting in that cheery news?” 

“No, I don’t. Not just yet.” Burford wiped 
the last soot-streak from his chin and jumped into 
the launch. “ Here we go ! ” 

“Wait a jiffy, Burford. You’d better stay by 
the dredge an hour or so. Keep the men at work 
flooding her deck. We can’t be certain-sure that 
the fire is completely out. There’s always a 
risk.” 

“That’s a fact. You go up to the cave-in 
and set the levee crews to work. I’ll follow in an 
hour.” 

Rod started his engine, but Marian stopped 
him. 

“Wait, Rod. Take me up to the lateral, too.” 

“Take you up to the cave-in, you mean? 
Why on earth should you go? At this time of 
night ” 

“Because I want to see just what you have to 


THE MAGIC LEAD-PENCIL 167 


do. I’m getting very much interested in the 
work, truly. Please, brother.” 

“Of all the notions!” Rod looked completely 
puzzled. Yet a warm little gratified smile bright- 
ened his tired face. Again he felt the heart- 
warming satisfaction that he had felt on the day 
he had come home, fagged and blue, to find that 
Marian had sorted all his accounts and cleared 
up his reports for him. It was wonderfully pleas- 
ant to find that his sister could show such real 
comradeship in his work. 

“Of course you shall go with me if you wish, 
dear. Hop in. Careful ! ” 

“Let me steer, Rod.” 

“Think you can see all right?” 

“With this big search-light? I should hope so. 
Lie down on the cushions and rest for two minutes. 
I’ll run very carefully. ” 

“Good enough.” Rod stretched his weary 
bones on the seat. At the end of the six-mile run 
he sat up, with a shamed grin. 

“Lazy sinner I am, I dropped off the minute I 
struck those cushions. My, that snooze makes one 
thirsty for more! Put the launch inshore, Sis. 


1 68 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


Hello there, boys I Is that Dredge A crew? Why, 
how did you swing the dredge downstream so 
quickly? ” 

“We had steam up, so we dropped down the 
lateral the minute we got word of the cave-in, ” 
answered the dredge foreman. “It was Mister 
Jim Conover who happened by and saw the land- 
slip, sir. He came a-gallopin’ over with his horse 
all lather, and brought us the news, not fifteen 
minutes after it happened. Then he called his 
own hired men and a crowd of neighbors, and they 
all set to to shore up the bank, above and below 
the break, with sand-bags and brush. They’re 
workin’ at it now, sir, lickety-cut. ” He pointed 
up the lateral to a dim glow of torch-light. “ Shov- 
ellin’ away like beavers they are, sir. There won’t 
be another slump in that margin, you can depend 
on that. They’ve saved you and the company 
two days’ work and five hundred dollars clear in 
damages alone, I’m thinkin’.” 

“Five hundred damages? It would have been 
nearer a thousand if they hadn’t stopped that 
slide on the double-quick.” Roderick sat star- 
ing at the hurrying figures in the dull glow of 


THE MAGIC LEAD-PENCIL 169 

smoky light. He could hardly grasp this amaz- 
ing stroke of fortune. “But how— why— I never 
heard of such a royal piece of kindness !” 

“It’s all Conover’s doing. He said you folks 
had done mighty neighborly by him, and that he 
wanted to show his appreciation. ” 

“Conover! Why, I never even heard the man’s 
name till now!” 

“Conover?” Marian screwed up her forehead. 
A vague recollection flickered in her mind. 

“Yes, sir, Conover. He has a good-sized farm 
back here a piece. Likely you’ve forgotten. 
There’s him and his wife and his little girl. Crip- 
pled she is, the poor child. Mamie, they call her.” 

“Mamie Conover — Oh! The poor little soul 
who was so delighted with your red pencils, Rod! 
That visitors’ Sunday, don’t you remember?” 

“Oh, to be sure. You’re better at remembering 
than I am, Sis. Well, I’m going up to thank him, 
this minute. Then we’ll ship the dredge into 
trim and begin digging out the channel again. 
Think it will take us all night?” 

“Now that Conover’s gang has stopped the 
slide so good and square for us, we ought to be 


i7o THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


able to cut out and tamp down, too, by daybreak, 
sir. Maybe sooner. Here comes Conover this 
minute. ” 

Coated with mud, squashing heavily into the 
sodden crest of the bank with every step, Conover 
tramped down the ditch. In that shambling 
figure, Marian instantly recognized little Mamie’s 
father. Vividly she remembered his deep, weary 
look at her, the infinite tenderness with which he 
had lifted the little frail body from her arms. 

In the white glare of the search-light, his gaunt 
face was radiant with friendly concern. 

“We’ve done what little we could, Mr. Hallow- 
ell,” he said, in reply to Rod’s eager thanks. 
“Little enough at that. But now if you’ll put in 
a few hours’ dredging to get out that slide, your 
ditch will be all right again. Mr. Locke there, 
whose land borders on this lateral, is a little — 
well, a little fussy, you know. That’s why we fel- 
lows kinder butted in and set to work without 
waitin’ to hear from you. Land, it wasn’t noth- 
ing to thank us for. Just a little troke between 
neighbors. You here, Miss Hallowell? My buck- 
board is right up-shore. Can’t I drive you to Mr. 


THE MAGIC LEAD-PENCIL 171 

Gates’s? It’s right on my way home — only a 
mile or so off my road, that is. ” 

“Run along, Sis. Please. It’s late and damp, 
and chilly besides. Scoot, now. ” 

“But I don’t want to go, Rod. I want. to stay 
and see the dredge make the cut over again. This 
is the most interesting performance I ever dreamed 
of.” 

“I’d much rather have you go home, old lady. 
You can’t see much in this half-light. And you 
can’t help me. Worse, you’ll catch cold sure and 
certain. ” Yet that odd little glow warmed Rod’s 
heart once more. It was a wonderful satisfaction 
to hear Marian speak with such keen interest of 
his beloved work. 

“Well, then — ” reluctantly Marian scrambled 
ashore. Mr. Conover wiped his muddy hands on 
the lap-robe and helped her into the buckboard, 
with awkward care. They drove swiftly away, 
up the wide country road, between the dark, level 
fields* 

Neither spoke for some minutes. At last 
Marian began, rather clumsily, to tell him of their 
exciting day. 


172 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 

The man made no comment. Still more clum- 
sily, she tried to thank him for his generous and 
timely aid to Roderick. 

Suddenly Mr. Conover turned to her. In the 
faint starlight she saw that his dull face was 
working painfully. 

“So you want to thank me for this job, eh? 
Why, if I’d done ten times as much, I wouldn’t 
have begun to do what I want to do for you and 
your brother. I’ve been aimin’ to come over and 
tell you, long ago. But seems like I never get 
around to it. Don’t you mind about them red 
pencils?” 

“ Those red and blue pencils of Rod’s, you mean? 
What of them?” 

“What of them? My, if you could see Mamie 
with them, you wouldn’t ask!” The color burned 
in his thin face. His eyes were shining now. 
“They’re the one pleasure that ain’t never failed 
her. If I could ever tell you what they’ve meant! 
I’ve sent to the city and bought her three or four 
dozen assorteds, so’s to be sure she never gets short 
of all the colors. No matter how bad her back 
hurts, she’ll set there in her pillows and mark 


THE MAGIC LEAD-PENCIL 


i73 


away, happy’s a kitten. Seems like long’s she’s 
workin’ with those pencils, she forgets everything, 
even the pain. And that’s the best we can ever 
do for our baby.” His voice broke on a terrible 
and piteous note. “The only thing we can do — 
help her forget. ” 

There was a long silence. 

“An’ then you talk as if what I did to-night 
could count for anything — alongside of that!” 

Marian’s own lips were quivering. She did not 
dare to reply. 

Yet as she put out her bedroom candle and 
stood looking out on the dark starlit woods, the 
narrow black ribbon of the canal, a whimsical 
wonder stirred in her thought. 

“I’ll tell Rod to-morrow that his red pencils 
must have the credit of it all. It’s the story of 
the little Dutch hero who stuffed his thumb into 
the crack in the dike and saved the city, right 
over again. Only this time it’s something even 
tinier than a thumb that has saved the day. It’s 
just a little red lead-pencil. And, oh, how glad 
I am for Roderick’s sake! The dear, stodgy old 
slow-coach, I’m proud of every inch of his success. 


174 THE hallowell partnership 


Though maybe Slow-Coach isn’t just the fitting 
name for Rod nowadays. Sometimes the slow 
coaches are the very ones that win the race — in 
the long run. ” 


CHAPTER X 


HONORED GUESTS 

Marian’s wish for quiet and monotonous days 
was promptly granted. Only too promptly and 
too thoroughly, she owned ruefully. The next 
morning dawned bleak and gray, with a chill east 
wind and a driving rain. Held prisoner in the 
house by the storm, Marian amused herself 
through the long dreary day as best she could. 
At supper-time, feeling very lonely indeed, she 
called Roderick up on the telephone; but their 
long-distance visit gave her little satisfaction. 

Roderick had spent a hard day, hurrying from 
one lateral to another, crowding the levee work to 
the highest possible speed; for in this wide-spread 
rain the creeks to the north were rising an inch an 
hour, and every inch meant danger to his half- 
built embankments. Marian sympathized eagerly 
and declared that she would come down to the 
canal the next day and help him with his reports. 

175 


1 76 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“Not if it rains you won’t,” croaked Roderick 
hoarsely. “Don’t let me catch you outside the 
house. You’ll catch cold just as I have done, wad- 
ing through this swamp. Mind, now. Don’t you 
dare leave the farm-house unless it clears. ” 

Marian promised. When the morning came, 
dark and drizzly, she found it hard to keep her 
word. The hours went on leaden feet. The down- 
pour never slackened. It was impossible for her 
to go out-doors even as far as the driveway. In 
that flat, low country a two-days’ rain means an 
inundation. Meadows and fields were like flooded 
marshes. Sheets of water spread through the 
orchards; the yard paths were so many brooks, 
the barn-yard was an infant lake. 

“It won’t last very long,” Mrs. Gates consoled 
her. “A year ago we’d have been heart-broken 
at the sight of such a rain. It would have meant 
ruin for all the crops. The surplus water would 
not have drained off in a fortnight. But since 
they began digging the ditches, we know that our 
crops will be safe, even if it rains for a week. ” 
“I’m glad to learn that Rod’s hard work counts 
for something,” said Marian impatiently. She 


HONORED GUESTS 


177 


flattened her downcast face against the pane. 
“ In the meantime, I feel like a marooned pirate. 
If I can’t get out of doors for some fresh air 
before long, I’ll develop a pirate’s disposition, 
too.” 

At dusk she tried again to call Roderick on 
the telephone, to demand sympathy for her im- 
prisonment. But to her astonishment she could 
get no reply from central. 

“The wires are all down, I dare say,” said Mrs. 
Gates cheerfully. “It’ll be three or four days be- 
fore the line-men can get around to repair 
damages. The roads are hub deep. No telling 
when they can haul their repair wagons through. 
You’ll see.” 

Marian did see. The district roads had been 
all but impassable ever since her coming. Now, 
thanks to this downpour, they would be bottom- 
less pits of mire. 

“Well! It’s worse this morning, if anything,” 
Mrs. Gates announced cheerfully, as Marian ap- 
peared on the third gray morning. “’Pears to 
me that you won’t get out-doors again before the 
Fourth of July.” 


178 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 

“But I must have some air. I can’t stay cooped 
up forever,” cried Marian. “If you’d only lend 
me your rubber boots, Mrs. Gates; the ones you 
wear when you’re gardening. Then I could put 
on my mackintosh and my rubber bathing-cap and 
splash about beautifully. Besides, I must go down 
to the canal. I must see how Rod is getting on. 
Think, it has been two days since I have heard one 
word from him. Yet he is barely two miles 
away!” 

Mrs. Gates yielded at last to her coaxing. Soon 
Marian started out, wearing the borrowed boots 
and Mr. Gates’s oil-skin coat. She stumbled and 
splashed away through the dripping woods, with 
Finnegan romping gayly behind. Rainy weather 
held no melancholy for Finnegan. Shut in the 
house, he had made those three days memorable 
for the household, especially for poor irate Em- 
press, who had taken refuge at last on the top 
rafter of the corn-bin. On the way to camp he 
flushed three rabbits, chased a fat gray squirrel 
into chattering fury, and dragged Marian knee- 
deep into a bog, in his wild eagerness to dig out 
an imaginary woodchuck. 


HONORED GUESTS 


179 


“I wish I had a little of your vim, Finnegan.” 
Marian sat down, soaked and breathless, on the 
step of Sally Lou’s martin-box. From that emi- 
nence she surveyed the canal and its swarms of 
laborers. Her eyes clouded. 

In spite of her growing interest in Roderick’s 
work, to look upon that work always puzzled her 
and disheartened her. The slow black water; the 
ugly mud-piled banks; the massive engines throb- 
bing night and day through a haze of steam; the 
gigantic dredge machines, swinging their great steel 
arms back and forth, up and down, lifting tons of 
earth from the bottom of the ditch and placing it 
on the waiting barge with weird, unerring skill. 
Most of all, the heavy tide of hurry and anxiety 
that seemed to rise higher every day. All these 
things vexed her and harassed her. When Rod 
talked over his work with her with all his eager 
enthusiasm, she could share his triumph or lament 
his disappointment, as the case might be. But 
the work itself was so huge, so complicated, that 
she could never quite grasp it. She could never 
understand her brother’s passionate interest. 

“Although I don’t despise the very sight of 


180 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


camp, as I did at first,” she reflected. “It is 
rather queer that I don’t, too. Perhaps one can 
get used to anything. And I do want to learn 
more about Rod’s work, for he loves it so dearly, 
and I know he wants me to enjoy it too. Though 
how anybody can enjoy such a life! To spend 
day after day, month on month, toiling like a 
slave in a steaming marsh like this!” 

A brisk finger tapped on the window-pane above 
her. 

“ Come in, Miss Northerner! Poor dear, you’re 
all but drowned. Stand on the oil-cloth and drip 
till Mammy can help you to take off those boots 
and put on my slippers. ” 

Marian entered the dry, warm little house with 
a sigh of pleasure. Presently she sat at the win- 
dow with Thomas Tucker bouncing on her knee. 
Thomas Tucker had charms that could cheer the 
most pensive spirit. Yet Marian stared soberly 
past his bobbing yellow head at the swarming 
camp below. 

“Don’t look so droopy, Miss Northerner. Perk 
up, do!” Sally Lou gave her ear a gentle nip. 
“You and I will have to manufacture cheerfulness 


HONORED GUESTS 


181 


in car-load lots this week, to counterbalance our 
partners’ gloom.” 

“Why? Have the boys met with more ill- 
luck on the contract?” 

“More ill-luck!” Sally Lou checked off point 
by point on her slim fingers. “Day before yester- 
day — the morning after the fire — the district in- 
spector was due here to pass judgment on the two 
upper laterals. As you know, the contract pro- 
vides that the inspector must look over every yard 
of excavation and approve it before it can be con- 
sidered as actually done. Lo and behold, no in- 
spector appeared. The boys were wild with anx- 
iety to start their levee-work before the rain 
should wash the soft new banks down into the 
canal; for the company is responsible for every 
cave-in, and every slide of land means double 
labor in digging all that soil out of the ditch again. 
By noon the inspector had not been heard from, 
but two small cave-ins had occurred, and the 
company was losing money at the rate of thirty 
dollars an hour, because of the enforced idleness of 
the laborers and the shutting down of the ma- 
chinery. Finally Roderick took his launch and 


182 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


started out in search of the inspector. At Grafton 
he managed to get telephone connections with his 
office, and he was cheerfully assured that the in- 
spector would appear on the scene 1 as soon as the 
rain stops.’” 

“‘ As soon as the rain stops?’ Why, Sally Lou! 
Then he hasn’t come at all!” 

“ Precisely. Back came poor Rod, very cross 
and doleful indeed. Then he and Ned gave up 
work on the laterals and set the men to hacking 
away at the regular excavation. The laborers are 
sulky accordingly. Yesterday they threatened a 
strike. I don’t blame them. The bank-cutting 
is all very well in dry weather, but in this rain it 
is a miserable task.” 

“Well, Rod can keep the men pacified. He’s 
a splendid manager.” 

“Yes; and the men like him. But the work 
is terribly wearing on both the boys. And the 
third calamity arrived last night. The dipper- 
handle broke.” 

“ The dipper-handle? On the big dredge? Sally 
Lou, how dreadful!” 

“Yes, it is dreadful. It means, of course, that 


HONORED GUESTS 


183 


twenty of the laborers will stop work and enjoy a 
vacation at the company’s expense while the 
new handle is being made and put in. Luckily 
the boys have one set of duplicate chains and 
timbers, and the company blacksmith is wonder- 
fully capable. But it will cost the company a 
lump loss of a thousand dollars. Imagine, Marian, 
how those poor boys will groan when they make 
out their week’s reports for President Sturdevant. 
‘One fire. One delay and two cave-ins, due to 
non-appearance of district inspector. One strike. 
One smashed dipper-handle. ’ Think what a dis- 
mal task the writing of that report will be!” 

“ Don’t let me hear any more croaking, Sally 
Lou,” came a wrathful voice from the door. 
“For we’re facing the worst smash yet. What do 
you suppose this telegram says?” 

Sally Lou shook a small fist at the yellow slip 
in his hand. 

“Don’t you dare tell me that it’s some new 
misfortune!” 

“ Two of ’em. That lordly, gloomy grouch, Mr. 
Ellingworth Locke, acting president of the Central 
Mississippi Association, is headed for this luck- 


i8 4 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


less camp. He’s on his way up-river this identical 
minute. With him comes Crosby. Crosby, con- 
sulting engineer for the whole Valley Association. 
Coming on a tour of inspection, if you please. 
Just think of the lovely job that they have come a 
thousand miles to inspect!” 

There was a stricken pause. 

“ President Locke! That — that potentate! Ned, 
you don’t mean it! And Mr. Crosby, whose word 
is law on every question of engineering ! ” 

“And they’re coming to-day! To inspect’ 
this soaking, miry, half-baked camp!” 

“And just this minute I’ve had some more 
news, Burford.” Roderick bolted up the steps 
and entered the room. He tried to wrench his 
face into a reassuring grin; but beneath the grin 
he was the picture of angry dismay. “A big 
white launch is just coming up the canal, with two 
passengers aboard. If I’m not mistaken, they are 
our honored guests. Come along, Burford, and 
help me welcome them.” 

Burford, pop-eyed with amazement, meekly 
obeyed. Wordless, the two girls watched the boys 
pelt away toward the landing. 


HONORED GUESTS 


185 


“Well!” 

Sally Lou and Marian looked at each other 
eloquently. 

“Well! I could find it in my heart to wish that 
the boys were not obliged to unfold quite so many 
tales of misery ! Then the broken machinery and 
the quarrelling laborers! But we mustn’t let our- 
selves fidget over it, Marian. It will come out all 
right, somehow. ” 

Roderick and Burford pounded down to the 
shore. The white launch was just putting into 
the landing. At the bow sat Mr. Ellingworth 
Locke, wrapped in a huge storm coat. Evidently 
he was scolding the launch pilot with some 
energy. Behind him stood Crosby, his gray, keen 
eyes searching every inch of the ditch construc- 
tion. 

“His Jove-like Majesty looks even grumpier 
than usual,” whispered Burford the irreverent. 
“Come along, Hallowell. It is our professional 
duty to welcome them with heart and soul. ” 

“Mr. Burford?” Mr. Locke stepped upon the 
landing and put out a plump gloved hand. “Ah, 
Mr. Hallowell? How goes it? We hope that you 


186 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


have no ill news of the contract to give us.” 
He led the way up the shore, with ponderous 
dignity. “The three contracts in central Illinois, 
which we have just inspected, have shown de- 
plorable results from the high water. I trust 
that you have no such misfortunes to report. ” 

“We haven’t anything but misfortunes to re- 
port,” muttered Burford. Aloud he said, “We 
have not been able to bring the work to the desired 
point, sir. We have had several accidents and 
delays. If you can face the discomforts of a boat 
trip in this rain, perhaps you will make a tour of 
inspection and see how matters stand.” 

The honorable Mr. Locke hesitated. The canal 
looked very muddy and uninviting. The sky was 
black with rain clouds. 

“Perhaps it would be as well for us to confer 
with you. Then we could go back to Saint Louis 
immediately. ” 

“Beg pardon, Mr. Locke.” Mr. Crosby spoke 
for the first time. His gray face had no particular 
expression; but his voice held an oddly pleasant 
note. “You go back right away, if you like. But 
I’ll look over this excavation with my own eyes. 


HONORED GUESTS 187 

I want to discuss it with the executive committee 
day after to-morrow. ” 

“Oh, of course, if you insist!” Mr. Locke 
turned impatiently to Burford. “Where is your 
boat, sir? Let us start at once. ” 

That tour of inspection! Silent, humiliated, 
miserable, Roderick and Burford plodded after 
the two Olympians, up and down the narrow 
laterals, back and forth through the maze of seep- 
ing, half-cut channels. Every question that they 
must answer told of some unlucky happening. 
Every report was apologetic, unsatisfactory. 

“This ruinous high water isn’t our fault. 
Neither is Carlisle’s illness, nor the broken dipper- 
handle, nor the district inspector’s delay. Just 
the same I feel like a penny-in-the-slot machine 
for grinding out explanations,” whispered Roder- 
ick to Burford. Burford merely scowled in reply. 

Thus far, Mr. Crosby had had nothing to say. 
He strode on ahead, his keen eyes judging, his 
shrewd mouth shut hard. President Locke made 
up for his silence. He hectored the boys with 
fretful questions and complaints. He criticised 
the laborers, the equipment, the weather. 


188 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“Your company’s losses, indeed! The Breck- 
enridge Company will be fortunate, Mr. Burford, 
if, under the present management, this contract 
does not bring forfeitures as well as loss. As for 
the land-owners in this district, their dissatisfac- 
tion can be only too readily imagined. ” 

Just then the president caught Mr. Crosby’s eye. 

“Do you not agree with me, Mr. Crosby? Is 
not this a most disheartening outlook? On my 
word, sir, the company has no chance to complete 
those laterals before the great June freshets. That 
calamity will mean ruin for the farmers and for the 
contract alike. To finish this work would be 
difficult with a full quota of experienced men. 
And with only cub engineers — ” He threw out 
both fat hands, with a gesture of despairing scorn. 

Burford bit his lip and turned fiery red with 
mortification. Roderick’s stolid face did not 
flinch. But his heart sank leaden to his miry 
boots. What an infuriating humiliation for the 
company! His company, the pride of his boy 
heart! And Breckenridge, Breck his hero, would 
have to hear it all! 

“You think it’s as bad as all that?” Mr. 


HONORED GUESTS 


189 


Crosby spoke with slow, bland unconcern. Then 
he looked at the two boys. For one moment his 
lean gray face lighted with a curious, kindly 
sparkle. “H’m! Strikes me that their company 
is mighty lucky to have cub engineers employed 
on this job.” 

“‘Lucky?’ Why, sir? Why?” 

“Well, because they’re the only kind that any 
company can depend upon to have nerve enough 
and grit enough to swing such a forlorn hope of 
a contract through.” 

He tramped on, up the landing. Burford threw 
back his shoulders. The blood flamed to his ears. 
Roderick’s heart suddenly leaped up to its normal 
altitude and began to pound. His lagging feet 
swung into a jaunty stride. He met Burford’s 
red, delighted face with a shamefaced grin. That 
vote of confidence had fairly set them afire. 

“At what time had we best start back to Saint 
Louis?” asked Mr. Locke. 

“By leaving camp at nine-thirty you will meet 
the north-bound limited at Grafton, sir. ” 

“Then, Crosby, we will stay here until that hour. 
But where shall we dine?” 


igo THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“It will be a pleasure to Mrs. Burford and my- 
self if you and Mr. Crosby will dine with us at 
our cabin,” interposed Burford eagerly. 

The stout potentate graciously accepted, and 
Burford fled to break the news to Sally Lou. 

“Mercy, Sally Lou, how can you manage it!” 
cried Marian, as Burford popped his head through 
the window, shouted his news, then hastily de- 
parted. “How on earth can you entertain such 
high mightinesses?” 

“Well, I should hope that I could give them 
one meal at least.” 

“But you haven’t enough dishes. That is, you 
haven’t cups that match ” 

“Cups that match, indeed! H’m. They can 
be thankful to get any cups at all in this wilder- 
ness. I’ve promised Mammy Easter my pink 
beads if she’ll make us some beaten biscuit, and I 
have sent Mulcahy to Mrs. Gates’s for three 
chickens, and I’ll open two jars of my white 
peach preserve. I don’t care if they’re the 
Grand Mogul and the Czar of all the Russias, 
they can surely condescend to eat Mammy’s fried 
chicken. ” 


HONORED GUESTS 


191 

“Yes, they’ll be sure to like chicken,” conceded 
Marian. 

“They’d better like it. It’s all they’re going 
to get. Chicken and potatoes and biscuit, pre- 
serves and coffee, that’s all. Yes, and lashin’s 
and lavin’s of cream gravy. It’ll be fit for a king. 
Even his Highness, the acting president, won’t 
dare complain!” 

If any complaints as to Sally Lou’s hospitality 
were spoken, they were not audible to the human 
ear. As Roderick said afterward, it was fortunate 
that nobody kept the beaten biscuit score; while 
one grieves to relate that in spite of Sally Lou’s 
generous preparation, poor Mammy Easter was 
obliged to piece out an exceedingly skimpy meal 
from the fragments of the supper, instead of the 
feast that she had anticipated. Even the pink 
beads proved a barely adequate consolation. 

The hour that followed, spent before the Bur- 
fords’ tiny hearth-fire, was the best of all. For 
a while, the men worked over the mass of blue- 
prints that recorded the excavation made during 
the month past. Here President Locke, the 
magnificent figure-head, gave way, promptly and 


i 9 2 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


meekly, before Crosby’s wider experience. Roder- 
ick and Burford listened, all ears, to the elder man’s 
shrewd illuminating comment, his quiet suggestion, 
his amused friendly sympathy. Both groaned in- 
wardly when the launch whistled from below, a 
warning that their guests must be off to meet the 
north-bound train. 

President Locke bowed over Sally Lou’s hand 
with majestic courtesy. 

“A most delightful hour you have given us, 
Mrs. Burford. We shall remember it always and 
with deep pleasure. But one thing is lacking in 
your hospitality. You have not given us the 
special pleasure of meeting your young sons. ” 

Then Sally Lou, the poised stately young host- 
ess, colored pink to her curly fair hair. 

“It is high time that my sons were sound 
asleep,” said she. “But if you really wish to see 
them, and can overlook their informal attire, 
Mammy Easter shall bring them in. ” 

In came two small podgy polar bears, wide- 
eyed at the marvel of company, and up-at-Nine- 
o’clock, dimpling, crimson-cheeked. Roderick and 
Burford stood gaping, to behold their august su- 


HONORED GUESTS 


i93 


periors now stooping from their heights to be- 
guile small Edward and shy Thomas Tucker with 
clumsy blandishments. 

“Where did you learn to handle a baby like 
that?” gasped Sally Lou, so astonished at Mr. 
Crosby’s dexterous ease that she forgot all con- 
vention. 

“ Six of my own,” returned the eminent engineer, 
capably shifting small, slippery Thomas Tucker 
on his gaunt shoulder. “ All grown up, I regret to 
say. My baby girl is a junior at Smith this year. 
Try him. Isn’t he a stunner for a year old?” 
He plumped the baby into the arms of the lordly 
president, who was already jouncing Edward 
Junior on his knee and showing him his watch. 

“A whale,” approved President Locke, with 
impressive emphasis. He stood up, gaining his 
footing with some difficulty; for both the babies 
were now clambering over him delightedly, while 
Finnegan yapped and nipped his ankles with 
cordial zest. “I wish we might spend another 
hour with these most interesting members of your 
household, Mr. Burford. ” His stern, arrogant face 
was beaming; he was no longer the exacting offi- 


194 THE hallowell partnership 


cial, but the gracious, kindly gentleman. “ Since 
we must go, we will leave behind us our good 
wishes, as well as our thanks for your most charm- 
ing hospitality. And we will take with us” — 
his eye sought Mr. Crosby’s; there passed be- 
tween the two men a quick, satisfied glance — 
“we shall take with us our hearty certainty that 
these good wishes for your husband’s work, as 
well as for his household, will be abundantly ful- 
filled.” 

In the flickering torchlight of the landing 
Roderick and Ned watched their launch start 
away. Then they looked at each other. 

“Well! Do you feel like tackling your job 
again, Burford?” 

“Feel like tackling it!” Ned chuckled, softly. 
“When I know they’re going to give their execu- 
tive committee a gilt-edged report of our company 
and its work! When Crosby himself said that we 
were the right men on the right job! Feel like 
tackling it? Give me a shovel and I’ll tackle 
the Panama Canal.” 


CHAPTER XI 


A LONG PULL AND A STRONG PULL 

“What is the latest bulletin, Sally Lou?” 

Ned Burford, hot, muddy, breathless, ran up 
the martin-box steps and put his head inside the 
door. 

Sally Lou sat at Ned’s desk, her brown eyes 
intent, her cheeks a little pale. A broad map 
lay spread before her. One hand steadied small 
Thomas Tucker, who clung against her knee. The 
other hand grasped the telephone receiver. 

“What’s the news, I say? Doesn’t central 
answer? Wires down again, do you s’pose?” 

“Yes, central answered, and we reached the 
operator at Bates Creek an hour ago. She says 
that the smaller streams below Carter’s Ford have 
not risen since daybreak, but that Bates Creek 
itself has risen three inches in the last four hours. ” 

“Whew! Three inches since morning! That 

sounds serious. What about Jackson River?” 

195 


i 9 6 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“ Below Millville the Jackson has flooded its 
banks. Above Millville the men are patrolling 
the levees and stacking in sand bags and brush to 
reinforce the earthwork. ” 

“That means, another crest of water will reach 
us to-morrow, early. Well, we are ready to face 
it, I’m thankful to say.” Ned settled back in his 
big chair with a sigh of relief. “That is, unless 
it should prove to be more than a three-foot rise. 
And there is practically no danger that it will go 
beyond that stage. Our upper laterals are ex- 
cavated to final depth. Our levee is growing like 
magic, and Hallowell is putting in splendid time 
on the lower laterals with the big dredge. So we 
needn’t worry. As soon as he finishes all the lateral 
excavation, he will bring the dredges down to the 
main ditch and start in to deepen the channel 
to its final depth. When that second excavation 
is done, the channel will allow for a six-foot rise. 
That channel depth, of course, will put us far out 
of any danger of overflow. Then when the June 
floods come, the creeks can rise four inches or 
forty inches if they like. We won’t care.” 

Sally Lou looked sharply at his grimy, cheerful 


A LONG PULL AND A STRONG PULL 197 

face. Her own did not reflect his contentment. 
She put down the receiver and bent frowning over 
the map. Her pencil wandered over the maze of 
fine red fines that marked the excavation. 

“Hallowell and I had nothing but bad luck on 
this contract until two weeks ago, when Locke 
and Crosby came on their inspection tour,” Ned 
went on serenely. “But since their visit, we’ve 
had two solid weeks of the best fortune any en- 
gineer could ask. It has been almost too good; 
it’s positively uncanny. Not a break in the ma- 
chinery; only one cave-in, and that a trifle; not 
a solitary quarrel among the laborers — the shifts 
have moved like clock-work. It was Crosby’s 
doing, I suppose. His coming heartened us all 
up; all of us; even to the dredges themselves. 
Though, on my word, Sally Lou, I’m almost 
afraid of such unchanging good luck. It’s no’ 
canny. ” 

Sally Lou turned to him suddenly. Her fingers 
tapped the desk with nervous little clicks. 

“Listen, Ned. Have you finished the upper 
laterals? Are they safe, no matter how high the 
water may rise?” 


198 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 

“N-no. They are excavated, but the bank is 
nothing but heaped mud, you know. Still, it would 
stand anything short of a flood. ” 

“What about the lower laterals?” 

“ Same state of affairs there. Only that the two 
lowest ditches aren’t cut at all. Why?” 

Sally Lou swung round in the desk chair and 
faced her husband. Her eyes were very dark and 
anxious now. 

“One more question, Ned. Could the work 
stand a three-foot rise?” 

Ned stared. 

“A three-foot rise? No, it could not. A 
three-foot rise would stop our levee-building. A 
rise of four feet or more would put us out of the 
game. We’d be washed out, smashed, ruined. 
But why do you ask such questions? What makes 
you imagine ” 

“I’m not imagining, Ned. I had a telephone 
call not five minutes ago from the district inspector. 
Yes, I know you think he’s always shouting ‘ Wolf ! ’ 
but this time he may be right. He says that he has 
just come down from Chicago on the Central, and 
that the whole mid-section of the State is fairly 


A LONG PULL AND A STRONG PULL 199 

submerged by these endless rains. Worse, the 
storm warnings are up for further rains. And he 
believes that there will be a rise of three feet within 
two days. That is, unless the rains stop.” 

Ned started to his feet. 

“A rise of three feet! What is the man talking 
about? Don’t you believe one word, Sally Lou. 
That inspector is a regular hoot-owl. He’d rather 
gloom and forebode than breathe. But maybe 
I’d better go and tell Hallowell. Perhaps we can 
ginger up our excavation. Yet the men and the 
machines are working up to their limit.” 

He shuffled into his wet oilskins once more. 

“ Where is Roderick, Ned?” 

“He just came in off his watch. He’s sound 
asleep in the hammock over at his shack. Marian 
is over there too. She made Mr. Gates bring her 
down at five this morning, and she has worked 
like a Turk every minute. She spent the morning 
with Hallowell, up the laterals. She has learned 
to run his launch better that he can, so he lets her 
manage the boat for him. Then she takes all his 
notes, and does all his telephoning, and passes along 
his orders to the commissary men, and seconds 


200 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


him at every turn. Did you ever in all your life 
see anybody change as she has done? When I 
remember the listless, useless, fretful specimen 
that she was, those first weeks, then look at her 
now, I can hardly believe my eyes. ” 

Sally Lou listened a little impatiently. 

“Yes, I know. Ned, please go and tell Rod- 
erick about the inspector’s message. He surely 
ought to know.” 

“All right, I’m going.” Ned put down his 
frolicking small sons reluctantly. Sally Lou 
laughed at his unwilling face. Yet she looked 
after him anxiously as he sauntered away. Then 
her eyes turned to the brimming canal. Tree 
branches and bits of lumber, washed down from 
the upper land by the heavy storm, rolled and 
tumbled past. The sky was thick and gray, the 
wind blew straight from the east. 

“I hate to fidget and forebode. But I — I al- 
most wish that I could make Ned forebode a 
little. I’m afraid he ought to worry. And Rod- 
erick ought to be a little anxious, too. ” 

Suddenly the telephone bell rang. Sally Lou 
sprang to answer it. 


A LONG PULL AND A STRONG PULL 201 


“Yes, this is the contract camp. A Chicago 
call? Is it — Is it head-quarters? Oh, is this 
Mr. Breckenridge who is speaking? Shall I call 
Mr. Burford?” 

Strong and clear across two hundred miles of 
storm the voice reached her, a hurrying command. 

“Do not call your husband. No time. Oper- 
ator says the wind raging here may break connec- 
tions at any minute. Tell him that we have posi- 
tive word that a tremendous rise is on the way. A 
cloudburst north of Huntsville started this new 
crest two hours ago. Moreover, a storm belt ex- 
tends across the State, covering a district thirty 
miles wide directly north of you. Tell our en- 
gineers to spare neither money nor effort in mak- 
ing ready. Tell them, whatever else they must 
neglect, to save ” 

Click! 

The receiver dropped from Sally Lou’s shaking 
hand. Not another sound came over the wire. 
She signalled frantically. 

“Oh, if he had only told me! 'To save’ — to 
save what ? The machinery, the levee, the later- 
als — Oh, central, please, please!” 


202 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


Still no sound. At last central’s voice, a thin 
little whisper. 

“Chicago connections broken . . . terrible storm 
. . . sorry can’t reach ” 

The thin little whisper dropped to silence. 

“ Mammy, take these babies. I’m going away. ” 
Sally Lou rolled Thomas Tucker off her lap and 
dashed away to Roderick’s shack. Trembling, 
she poured out her ill news. 

“This means business.” Roderick, heavy-eyed 
and stupid, struggled into hip boots and slicker. 
“ Breckenridge isn’t frightening us for nothing. 
We daren’t lose a minute. Come along, Bur- 
ford.” 

“ Come along — where? ” Burford stood stunned 
before this bewildering menace. “What more can 
we do? Aren’t we rushing the whole plant to 
the danger notch of speed as it is?” 

“There is one thing we must do. Decide what 
part of the work we can abandon. Then put our 
whole force, men, machinery, and all, to work at 
the one point where it will do the most good.” 

“What can we abandon? It’s all equally im- 
portant. ” 


A LONG PULL AND A STRONG PULL 


203 


“That is for you and me to decide. Come 
along.” 

“If Breck had only finished his sentence! 'To 
save — ’ Surely he meant for us to save the 
dredges? ” 

Again the boys looked at each other. 

“To save the dredges, maybe. But that doesn’t 
sound like Breckenridge. 'To save the land- 
owners from loss/ that’s more like what he’d 
say.” 

“If we could only reach him, for even half a 
minute ” 

“That is precisely what we can’t do.” Roder- 
ick’s big shoulders lifted. His heavy face settled 
into lines of steel. “We’ll bring all three of the 
machines down stream, and put up our fight on 
the main ditch. If we can cut through to the 
river, before the rise gets here, we will save the 
crops for most of the land-owners, anyway. That 
will check any danger of the water backing up 
into the narrow laterals and overflowing them. ” 

Burford frowned. 

“Do you realize that by making that move we 
shall risk wrecking the dredges? We will have to 


204 THE hallowell partnership 


tow them down in this rough, high water against 
this heavy wind. We may smash and sink all 
three. And they cost the company a cool twenty 
thousand apiece, remember. ” 

Roderick’s jaw set. 

“I realize just that. But it is up to us to de- 
cide. If we stop our excavation and huddle the 
machines back into the laterals, we will save our 
equipment from any risk. But the overflow will 
sweep the whole lower district and ruin every acre 
of corn. On the other hand, if we bring the 
dredges down here and start in full tilt to deepen 
the channel, we may wreck our machines — and 
we may not. But, whatever happens, we will be 
giving the land-owners a chance.” 

Burford held back, but only for a moment. 
Then he put out his hand to Roderick, with a slow 
grin. 

“I’m with you, Hallowell. I’ll take your lead, 
straight through. It’s up to us, all right. We’ve 
got to shoulder the whole responsibility, the whole 
big, hideous risk. But we’ll put it through. 
That’s all.” 

Together the boys hurried away. Left behind, 


A LONG PULL AND A STRONG PULL 205 

the girls set to work upon their share of the plan 
with eager spirit. 

“You go with the boys and run the launch for 
them, Marian. I’ll turn the babies over to 
Mammy and stay right here to watch the tele- 
phone and keep the time-books, although time- 
books could wait, in such a pinch as this. We’ll 
all pull together. And we will pull out safely, 
never fear.” 

Sally Lou was right. They all pulled together. 
Machines, laborers, foremen and all swung splen- 
didly into line. As Ned said, the contract had 
never shown such team-work. Everybody worked 
overtime. Everybody faced the rain, the mud, 
the merciless hurry with high good-humor. The 
thrill of danger, the daring risk, the loyal zeal 
and spirit for the company, all spurred them on. 

Side by side with Roderick, Marian worked 
through the day. She had long since forgotten 
her frail health. She had forgotten her hatred 
of the dun western country, her dislike of Roder- 
ick’s work, her weariness, her impatience. With 
heart and soul she stood by her brother. Only 
the one wish ruled every act: her eager desire to 


206 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


help Roderick, to stand by him through to the end 
of this tremendous strain. 

“ We’ll make it!” Roderick grinned at her, 
tired but content, as he came into the shack 
for his late supper. “Sally Lou finally reached 
Springfield on the telephone. The rain has 
stopped; so while the rise will come, sure as fate, 
yet it may not be as high as Breckenridge feared. 
At any rate, we have made splendid time with the 
big dredge to-day. There is barely an eighth of 
a mile more cutting to be done. Then we’ll reach 
the river, and we’ll be safe, no matter what 
freshets may happen along. Burford says I’m 
to take six hours’ sleep; then I’ll go on watch 
again. Twelve more hours of working time will 
see our land-owners secure.” 

“Ned Burford is running up the shore this 
minute.” Marian peered through the tent flap. 
“Mulcahy is coming with him. They’re in a 
hurry. I wonder what has happened.” 

“They’d better not bring me any bad news till 
I have eaten my supper,” said Roderick grimly. 

Burford and Mulcahy galloped up the knoll. 
Headlong they plunged into the tent. Burford 


A LONG PULL AND A STRONG PULL 207 

was gray-white. Mulcahy stared at Roderick 
without a word. 

“ What has happened? Burford, what ails you?” 

Burford sat down and mopped his sweating 
forehead. 

“The worst break-down yet, Hallowed. The 
dipper-bail on the big dredge has snapped clear 
through. ” 

The three stared at each other in helpless de- 
spair. Marian broke the silence. 

“The dipper-bail broken again? Why, it’s 
not two weeks since you put on the new handle!” 

“True for you, miss. Not two weeks since 
it broke,” said Mulcahy wrathfully. “And its 
smash means a tie-up all along the line. Not one 
stroke of ditch-work can be done till it’s replaced. 
Who ever saw a dipper break her bail twice on 
the same job? ’Tis lightnin’ strikin’ twice in the 
same place. But ’tis no use cryin’ over spilt milk. 
One of you gentlemen will have to go to Saint 
Louis and have a new bail welded at the steam 
forge. It will cost twenty-four hours’ time, but 
it is the only way. I’ll keep the boys hot at 
work on the levee construction meanwhile.” 


208 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“Go to Saint Louis to-night! And neither of 
you two have had a night’s sleep this week!” 
Marian looked at Burford. His sodden clothes 
hung on him. His round face was pinched and 
sunken with fatigue. She looked at her brother. 
He had slumped back in his chair, limp and hag- 
gard. He was so utterly tired that even the shock 
of ill news could not rouse him to meet its chal- 
lenge. 

Then she looked out at the weltering muddy 
canal, the dark stormy sky. 

“ Never mind, Rod. We’ll manage. You and 
Ned make out the exact figures and dimensions 
for the new bail. Then Mulcahy can take me to 
Grafton in the launch. There I’ll catch the Saint 
Louis train. I’ll go straight to the steam forge 
and urge them to make your bail at once. Then 
I’ll bring it back on the train to-morrow night. ” 

Promptly both boys burst into loud, astonished 
exclamations. 

“ Go to Saint Louis alone! I guess I see myself 
letting you do such a preposterous thing. I’ll 
start, at once.” 

“Stop that, Hallowed. You can’t possibly go. 


A LONG PULL AND A STRONG PULL 209 


You’re so sleepy that you haven’t half sense. I’ll 
go myself. ” 

“Oh, you will. Then what about your watch 
to-night? Shall I take it and my own, too?” 

Burford stopped, quenched. He reddened with 
perplexity. 

“We can’t either of us be spared, that’s the fact 
of it. But Miss Marian must not think of going. ” 

“Certainly not. I would never allow it.” 

“Yes, Rod, you will allow it.” Marian spoke 
quietly, but with determination. “The trip to 
Saint Louis is perfectly safe. Once in the city, 
I’ll take a carriage to the College Club and stay 
there every minute, except the time that I must 
spend in giving orders for the bail. No, you two 
need not look so forbidding. I’m going. And I’m 
going this identical minute.” 

Later Marian laughed to remember how swiftly 
she had overruled every protest. The boys were 
too tired and dazed to stand against her. It was 
hardly an hour before she found herself flying down 
the river, in charge of the faithful Mulcahy, on her 
way to catch the south-bound train. 

“The steam-forge people will do everything 


2io THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


in their power to serve you,” Roderick had said, 
as he scrawled the last memoranda for her use. 
“They know our firm, and they will rush the bail 
through and have it loaded on the eight-o’clock 
train. I’ll see to it that Mulcahy and two men 
are at the Grafton dock to meet your train. But 
if anything should go wrong, Sis, just you hunt up 
Commodore McCloskey and ask him to help you; 
for the commodore is our guardian angel, I am 
convinced of that.” 

The trip to the city was uneventful. She awoke 
early, after a good rest, and hurried down to the 
forge works, a huge smoky foundry near the 
river. The shop foreman met her with the ut- 
most courtesy and promised that the bail should be 
made and delivered aboard the afternoon train. 
Feeling very capable and assured, Marian went 
back to the club and had spent two pleasant hours 
in its reading-room when she was called to the 
telephone. 

“Miss Hallowell?” It was the voice of the 
forge works foreman. “I — er — most unluckily 
we have mislaid the slip of paper which gave 
the dimensions of the bail. We cannot go on 


A LONG PULL AND A STRONG PULL 21 1 


until we have those dimensions. Do you remem- 
ber the figures?” 

Poor Marian racked her brain. Not one meas- 
urement could she call to mind. 

“HI ask my brother over the long-distance,” 
she told the foreman. But even as she spoke, she 
knew that there was no hope of reaching Roderick. 
All the long-distance wires were down. 

“And not one human being in all Saint Louis 
who can tell me the size of that bail! she groaned. 
“Oh, why didn’t I measure it with my own tape- 
measure — and then learn the figures by heart! 
Yet — I do wonder! Would Commodore McClos- 
key know? He has been at the camp so often, 
and he knows everything about our machinery. 
Let’s see. ” 

Presently Commodore McCloskey’s friendly 
voice rang over the wire. 

“Well, sure ’tis good luck that ye caught me 
at the dock, Miss Marian. The Lucy is just startin’ 
up-river. Two minutes more and I’d have gone 
aboard. So ye’ve lost the bail dimensions? Well, 
well, don’t talk so panicky-like. I’ll be with ye 
in two minutes, an’ we’ll go to the forge together. 


2i2 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


’Tis no grand memory I have, but I can give them 
a workin’ idea.” 

“Oh, if you only will, commodore! But the 
Lucy ! How can you be spared? ” 

“Hoot, toot. The Lucy can wait while I go 
shoppin’ with you. Yes, she has a time schedule, 
I know well. But, in high wather, whoever ex- 
pects a Mississippi packet to be on time? Or in 
low wather, either, for that matter. I’ll come to 
ye at once. ” 

The commodore was as good as his word. 
Soon he and Marian reached the forge works. 
There his shrewd observation and his wise old 
memory suggested dimensions which proved later 
to be correct in every detail. Moreover, he in- 
sisted upon staying with Marian till the bail should 
be welded. Then, under his sharp eyes, it was 
loaded safely on the Grafton train. As he es- 
corted Marian elegantly into the passenger coach, 
she ventured, between her exclamations of grati- 
tude, to reprove him very gently. 

“You have been too good to me, commodore. 
But when I think of the poor deserted Lucy ! 
And the captain — what will he say?” 


A LONG PULL AND A STRONG PULL 213 


“ He’ll say a-plenty. ” The little commodore 
smiled serenely. “’Tis an unchivalrous set the 
steam-boat owners are, nowadays. If he were 
half as oblighT as the old captains used to be in 
the good days before the war, he’d be happy to 
wait over twenty-four hours, if need be, to serve 
a lady. But nowadays ’tis only time, time that 
counts. Sure, he’s grieved to the heart if we make 
a triflin’ loss, like six hours, say, in our schedule. ” 
“And I’m not thanking you for myself alone,” 
Marian went on, flushing. “It is for Rod, too. 
You don’t know how much it means to me to be 
able to help him, even in this one small way. ” 
Then the little commodore bent close to her. 
His shrewd little eyes gleamed. 

“Don’t I know, sure? An’ by that token I’m 
proud of this day, and twice proud of the chance 
that’s led me to share it. For, sure, I’ve always 
said it— the time would certain come when you— 
when you'd wake up . Mind my word, Miss Marian. 
Don’t ye forget! Don’t ye let go— and go to 
sleep again.” 

The train jarred into motion. His knotted little 
hand gripped hers. Then he was off and away. 


214 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“The dear little, queer little commodore !” 
Marian looked after him, her eyes a bit shadowy. 
“Though what could he mean! ‘Now you’ve 
waked up.’ I do wonder!” 

Yet her wonder was half pretended. A hot 
flush burned in her cheek as she sat thinking of 
his words. 

“Well, I’m glad, too, that I’ve ‘waked up,’ 
although I wish that something had happened to 
stir me earlier.” 

The train crept on through the flooded coun- 
try. It was past eight o’clock when they reached 
Grafton. Marian hurried from the coach and 
watched anxiously while two baggagemen hoisted 
the heavy bail from the car. 

“Well, my share is done,” she said to herself. 
“That precious bail is here, safe and sound. But 
where is Mulcahy? And the launch? Rod said 
that he would not fail to be here by train time.” 

The train pulled out. From the dim-lit station 
the ticket agent called to her. 

“You’re expecting your launch, Miss Hallowell? 
There has been no boat down to-day.” 

“But my brother promised to send the launch,” 


A LONG PULL AND A STRONG PULL 215 

stammered Marian. “ Surely they knew I was 
coming to-night !” 

Then, in a flash of recollection, she heard Roder- 
ick’s voice: 

“And Mulcahy will meet you on the eight- 
o’clock train.” 

“Rod meant the train that leaves Saint Louis 
at eight in the morning! Not this afternoon train. 
How could I make such a blunder! He does not 
look for me to reach Grafton till to-morrow. ” 

She looked at the huge, heavy bail. 

“If that bail could reach camp to-night, they 
could ship it up and start to cutting immediately. 
It would mean seven or eight hours more of work- 
ing time. But how to take it there!” 

“There’s a man yonder who owns a gasolene- 
launch,” ventured the agent. “It’s a crazy, bat- 
tered tub, but maybe ” 

Marian looked out at the night: the black, 
sullen river; the ranks of willows swaying in the 
heavy wind; the thunder that told of approaching 
storm. 

“ Call that man over, please. Yes, I shall risk the 
trip up-river. That bail shall reach camp to-night.” 


CHAPTER XII 


PARTNERS AND VICTORIES 

“What time is it, miss?” 

Marian put down the gallon tin with which she 
had bailed steadily, and looked at her watch. 

“ Almost midnight.” 

“Only midnight!” 

The steersman gave a weary yawn and turned 
back to his wheel. Inwardly Marian echoed his 
discouraged word. It seemed to her that she had 
crouched for years in the stern of the crazy little 
motor-boat. Rain and spray had drenched her 
to the skin. She ached in every half-frozen bone. 
Yet she sat, wide awake and alert, watching her 
pilot keenly. 

He was a poor helmsman, she thought. How- 
ever, an expert would have found trouble in taking 
an overloaded launch up-stream against that swol- 
len current and in pitch darkness. Worse, the 
weight of the heavy dredge-bail weighed the launch 

216 


PARTNERS AND VICTORIES 217 

down almost to water level. Every tiny wave 
splashed over the gunwale. Marian bailed on 
mechanically. 

She had had hard work to bribe the owner to 
risk the trip up-stream. The men at Grafton had 
warned her, moreover, that she was running a nar- 
row chance of swamping the launch, and thus of 
losing her precious piece of machinery, to say 
nothing of the danger to her own life. But all 
Marian’s old timidity had fled, forgotten. Nothing 
else mattered if just she might serve her brother 
in his supreme need. 

Through these four dreary hours the old com- 
modore’s quaint, frank words had echoed in her 
mind. And the commodore had been right, she 
owned, with a quiver of shame. Always, since 
their mud-pie days, Rod had done his part by 
her in full measure, generously, lovingly. Never, 
until these last days, had she even realized what 
doing her own part by Roderick might mean. 

“ Although I have been slower than my blessed 
old Slow-Coach himself in realizing what my life 
ought to count for. Well, as the commodore said, 
I have waked up at last. And mind this, Marian 


2 18 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


Hallowell! You stay awake ! Never, never let me 
catch you dozing off again !” 

“There's the camp light yonder," the steersman 
spoke at last, with a sigh of satisfaction. 

Marian peered ahead through the cold, blinding 
mist. Away up-stream shone a feeble glimmer, 
then a second light; a third. 

“Good! And — there are the dredge search- 
lights! Only a minute more and we’ll be there." 

Only a minute it seemed till the launch wheezed 
up to the landing and swung with a thud against 
the posts. Marian stumbled ashore. 

“Mulcahy!" she called to the dark figure stand- 
ing on the dredge deck. “ Send two men to unload 
the bail for us. " 

“Marian Hallowell! Where under the shining 
sun did you come from?" Roderick leaped from 
the deck to the shore and confronted his sister. 
Then, in his horrified surprise at her daring risk, 
he pounced upon her and administered a scolding 
of such vigor that it fairly made her gasp. 

“Of all the outrageous, reckless " 

“There, there, Rod! Look!" 

Still breathing threatenings and slaughter, Rod- 


PARTNERS AND VICTORIES 219 


erick turned. Then he saw the huge new bail 
which the men were hoisting ashore. 

“So that’s what it all means! That’s why you 
came up on the early train! You brought that 
bail yourself, all the way. You risked your life in 
that groggy little boat! All on purpose to help 
us out! Marian Hallowell, I’d like to shake you 
hard. And for two cents I’d kiss you right here 
and now. You — you peach /” 

Burford, awakened by the launch whistle, was 
hurrying down the bank. Reaching the landing 
his eye fell on the precious new bail. 

Utterly silent, he stared at it for a long rapt 
minute. Then, rubbing his sleepy eyes, he turned 
to Marian and Rod with a grin that fairly lighted 
up the dock. 

“Now,” he said, with slow exultation, “now — 
we’ve got our chance to win. ” 

And win they did. 

True, the water had already risen close to the 
dreaded three-foot danger-mark. True, neither 
of the boys had had half a dozen hours of sleep in 
three days. As for the laborers, they were fagged 
and overworked to the limit of their endurance. 


220 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


But not one of these things counted. Not a grum- 
bling word was spoken. This was their company’s 
one chance. Not a man held back from seiz- 
ing that chance and making good. Not a man 
but felt himself one with the company, a living 
vital element of that splendid struggling whole. 

Marian and Sally Lou stood on the shore watch- 
ing the dredge as the great dipper crunched its 
way through the last submerged barrier. The 
canal rolled bank full. Little waves swashed over 
the platform on which they stood. Pools of seep- 
water already gathered behind the mud embank- 
ment, which was crumbling into miry avalanches 
with every sweep of rising water against it. Not 
by any chance could the levee stand another hour. 
But even as the dredge cut that narrow passage, 
the heavy overflow boiled outward into the river 
beyond. Minute by minute the rough surface of 
the canal was sinking before their watching eyes. 
Now it had fallen from six inches above to high- 
water mark; now to three inches below; now to 
mid-stage — and safety. 

As the freed stream rolled out into the river, a 
great cheer rose from the laborers crowded along- 


PARTNERS AND VICTORIES 221 


shore. Roderick and Burford stayed aboard the 
dredge until it was warped alongside the dock and 
safely moored. Then they crossed to land and 
joined the girls. Neither of the boys spoke one 
word. They did not seem to hear the shouts and 
cheers behind them. There was no glow of success 
on their sober faces. Perhaps their relief was so 
great that they were a little stunned before its 
wonder. Victory was theirs; but victory won in 
the face of so great a danger that they could not 
yield and feel assured of their escape. 

“We cannot reach head-quarters on the tele- 
phone, of course. But, by hook or crook, one of 
you boys must get a despatch through to Mr. 
Breckenridge. Think of being able to tell him 
that you have deepened the canal straight through 
to the river, so that the whole lower half of the dis- 
trict is safe from overflow! And that you have 
moved all these costly, treacherous machines 
down-stream without one serious accident, with- 
out so much as a broken bolt! It is too good to 
be true. ” 

“I’ll take a launch and sprint down to Grafton 
and wire our report from there,” said Burford. 


222 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 

His tense face relaxed; he broke into a delighted 
chuckle. “Think of it: this once I can actually 
enjoy sending in my report to head-quarters! I’d 
like to write it out instead of wiring it. I’d put 
red-ink curlycues and scroll-work dewdabs all over 
the page. Think, Hallowell, you solemn wooden 
Indian! The crest of this flood is only two hours 
away. By noon the highest level will reach our 
canal. But it can’t flood our district for us, 
for — for we got there first!” 

His rosy face one glow of contentment, he started 
toward the pier. But as he was about to step 
aboard the duty-launch, Roderick hailed him 
sharply. 

“Wait, Burford. Somebody is coming up the 
big ditch. A large gray launch, with a little dark- 
blue flag.” 

“What!” 

Burford sprang back. He shaded his eyes and 
looked down the canal. Then, to Rod’s amaze- 
ment, he sat down on a pile of two-by-fours and 
rocked to and fro. 

“Whatever ails you, Burford?” 

“Whatever ails me, indeed!” Burford choked 


PARTNERS AND VICTORIES 


223 


it out. His ears were scarlet. His eyes were fairly 
popping from his head with delight. “Oh, I 
reckon I won’t bother to send that report to head- 
quarters, after all. I’ll just let the whole thing 
slide. ” 

Rod gaped at him. 

“Have you lost your last wit, Ned?” 

“Not quite. I’m going to give my report to my 
superior officer by word of mouth. That big gray 
power-boat is one of our own company’s launches. 
That small blue flag is the company ensign. And 
that big gray man standing ’midships is — Breck- 
enridge! Breck the Great, his very self.” 

“Breckenridge!” 

“ Breckenridge. All there, too — every splen- 
did inch of him. Talk about luck! Our levee is 
saved. Our dredges are all anchored, right yon- 
der, trim as a gimlet. Our schedule is put through 
up to the minute. And here, precisely on the 
psychological moment, comes our chief on his tour 
of inspection. Can you beat that?” 

Roderick merely stared down the canal. 

Close behind the launch pilot, scanning the bank 
intently as they steamed by, towered a broad- 


224 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


shouldered, heavily built man, gray-headed, yet 
powerful and alert in every movement. He was 
well splashed with mud; his broad, heavily feat- 
ured face was colorless with fatigue. Yet as he 
stood there, with his big tense body, his tired, 
eager face, he seemed like some magnificent natu- 
ral force imprisoned in human flesh. 

“ Isn’t he sumptuous, though?” said Burford, 
under his breath. “Look at those shoulders! 
What a half-back he would make!” 

“Half-back? Why, he could make the All- 
American,” Rod whispered back. His eyes were 
glued to that tall approaching figure. His heart 
was pounding in his breast. So this was Brecken- 
ridge the Great, his hero ! And, marvel of marvels, 
he looked the hero of all Rod’s farthest dreams. 

Breckenridge stepped from the launch and shook 
hands heartily with the radiant and stammering 
Burford. He looked at Roderick with steady 
dark eyes. He hardly spoke in reply to Burford’s 
introduction. But the grip of his big, muscular 
hand was warmly cordial. 

He asked a few brief questions. Then he lis- 
tened, his heavy head bent, his heavy-lidded eyes 


PARTNERS AND VICTORIES 225 

half closed, to Burford’s eager account of their 
struggles and their triumphs. Almost without 
speaking he clambered into the launch again and 
motioned the boys to follow. 

For four consecutive hours the three went up 
and down the rough miry channels. Roderick 
steered the launch. Burford answered Brecken- 
ridge’s occasional questions. Breckenridge stood, 
field-glass in hand, sweeping first one bank, then 
another with tireless eyes. He made almost no 
comment on Burford’s explanations; but the slow 
occasional nod of his massive head was eloquent. 

Finally they retraced the last lateral and 
brought the launch up to the main landing. 

“No, I’ll not stop to dine with you, much as 
I should enjoy it. I must be getting on to the 
next contract. They’re seeing heavy weather 
too.” Breckenridge stood up, stretching his big, 
cramped body. As he stood there, brushing the 
clay from his coat, he seemed to loom. 

“I have nothing much to say to you fellows,” 
he went on in his quiet, casual voice, “only to 
remark that you must have worked like Trojans. 
You have made a far larger" yardage record than 


226 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


we had dared to expect. You’ve put brains into 
your work, too. Can’t say I’m surprised at your 
success, by the way. I was pretty certain from 
what Crosby said that you two would swing this 
contract, all right. Crosby and I had a talk in 
Chicago a week or so ago. We were in Tech 
together. Naturally he’s quite a pal of mine, 
though nowadays we’re opponents in a business 
way. But his opinion weighs heavily with me. 
And now that I have gone over the ground for my- 
self, I am inclined to think that Crosby rather — 
well, that he underestimated your services to the 
company.” Again his big head bent with that 
queer slow nod. For a moment Breck himself, 
the real man, alert, just, keenly understanding, 
flashed a glance from behind that heavy mask of 
splendid, impassive flesh. “ Later you will prob- 
ably receive a more detailed explanation of my 
opinion on your work. Good luck to you both, 
and good-by. ” 

He stepped into the launch. The powerful 
boat dashed away down the rough yellow canal. 

The boys stood and looked after him. Burford 
was wildly exultant. But Roderick was silent. 


PARTNERS AND VICTORIES 


227 


A curious, deep satisfaction lighted his stolid, 
boyish face. Every word that Breckenridge had 
spoken was tingling in his blood. At last he 
had met his hero face to face, man to man. And 
his hero had proven all that heart could ask. 

“I wish I knew what he meant by saying that 
you’d hear further as to his opinion on your 
work,” pondered Marian. 

Just two days later her wish was gratified. 

It was a rainy, dreary day. Rod had spent the 
morning up the laterals and had come home drip- 
ping. Marian was trying to dry his soaked clothes 
before the smoky little oil-stove, but without much 
success. Just before noon she heard a welcome 
whistle. She ran down the bank to meet the ru- 
ral delivery-man in his little spider-launch. The 
roads were long since impassable; the mail and 
all the camp supplies must come by water. 

“ Stacks of letters, Rod. A fat official one for 
the Burfords and a still fatter, more official one 
for you. Do read it and tell me your news.” 

“All right, Sis.” Rod pushed aside his blue- 
prints and set to opening his mail. 


228 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


Marian looked over her own letters. They were 
all of a sort: pleasant, affectionate notes from her 
friends at home. All, with one accord, besought 
her to hurry back to college for commencement. 
All earnestly pitied her for the tedious weeks that 
she was spending “in that rough, dreadful west- 
ern country. ” 

Marian’s eyes twinkled as she read. At the 
bottom of the pile lay a note from her good friend 
Isabel, begging her for the twentieth time to 
spend August with her in her beautiful home at 
Beverly Farms. 

Marian read that letter twice. Her dark brows 
narrowed. 

Before her eyes gleamed Isabel’s home, the great 
beautiful house, set on a terraced emerald-green 
hill. Behind it, dark, cool, mysterious, lay the 
pine woods; before it flashed and gleamed the sea. 
She could see its wide, stately rooms, its soft- 
hued, luxurious furnishings. She could feel the 
atmosphere of quiet contentment, of assured ease, 
which was to Isabel and her mother the very air 
they breathed. 

Then she looked around her. 


PARTNERS AND VICTORIES 


229 


Here she sat in a tiny canvas shack with a 
rough board floor. She looked at its mended 
chairs, its rag-tag rug, and stringy curtains; 
Rod's wet clothes, dripping before the little oil- 
stove; Rod's battered desk, heaped with papers 
and blue-prints, a mass of accumulated work. 
Then she looked through the tent-flap. Neither 
blue ocean nor deep, still forest met her eyes. 
Only a narrow, muddy ditch; a row of wind- torn 
willows; a dark, swollen river, hurrying on be- 
neath a dark, sinister sky. 

An exclamation from Rod startled her. He 
stooped to her, his tired face burning. With un- 
steady fingers he put a letter into her hand. 

“Read that, Sis. No, I’ll not read it aloud to 
you. Look at it with your own eyes. " 

The Breckenridge Engineering Company. 

OFFICE OF THE SUPERINTENDENT. 

Roderick T. Hallowell, C. E., 

c /o Contract Camp , Grafton , Illinois. 

Sir: I beg to state that certain changes in the 
engineering force of the company have brought 
about a change in the position occupied by your- 
self with our firm. Beginning upon the first day 
of June, 1912, you will be transferred to the post 
of assistant superintendent on a large drainage 


2 3 o THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 

contract in northern Iowa. While your position 
will be second to that of Mr. McPherson, our 
supervising engineer, yet you will be given entire 
charge of the assembling of the plant and its con- 
struction. Your salary will be two thousand dol- 
lars. Payment quarterly, as is our custom. 

Some objections to this promotion have been 
raised by members of our company on the score 
of your limited experience. Mr. Breckenridge, 
however, considers from his observation of your 
methods that you will prove fully equal to this 
exacting and responsible position. 

I am, very respectfully, 

The Breckenridge Engineering Company. 

Per R. W. Austin, Sec’y. 

Silent, wide-eyed, Marian read this amazing 
document. Then, with a cry of surprise and de- 
light, she turned to her brother. But before she 
could speak, a storm of eager feet dashed up the 
cabin steps. In burst Sally Lou and Ned, head- 
long. Ned, breathless with excitement, waved a 
long official envelope. But Sally Lou, close at 
his heels with Thomas Tucker crowing on her arm, 
poured out the wild tale. 

“Oh, Marian! Oh, Roderick! Oh, it’s too 
good and grand and glorious to be true! We’re 
going home, home, straight back to Virginia!” 


PARTNERS AND VICTORIES 231 


“Yes, we’re going home, weTe fired, ” puffed 
Ned, as Sally Lou paused for breath. He sank 
down on the bench with a sigh of ecstasy. “ Don’t 
look so dazed, Hallowed. There is more news 
coming. We’re ordered off this contract. But 
we’re not ordered out of the Breckenridge Engi- 
neering Company. Not quite yet. Instead, I’m 
directed to report on the Dismal Swamp Canal 
the first of the month. My position will be prac- 
tically the same as the one that I’m now holding. 
But we can live at home. At home , I say! Right 
in Norfolk, right in the midst of all Sally Lou’s 
own home-folks, right around the corner from my 
own father’s house. Won’t we have a glorious 
year of it ! And won’t Edward Junior and Thomas 
Tucker be good and spoiled, though!” 

“ We’re so happy we can’t even say it to each 
other!” Sally Lou sat down suddenly, hiding her 
April face in Thomas Tucker’s small pinafore. 
“It took Mammy Easter to express our feelings 
for us. ‘Land, honey,’ said she, ‘I cert’n’y am 
thankful that we’s goin’ back to civilization. I 
want to climb on a real street-car again. I want 
to ride in an elevator. I don’t care if I never sets 


232 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


foot in one of dem slippery little launches again, 
long’s I live. But most of all I want to tote dese 
lambs out of this swamp and on to de dry land 
before dey grows up plumb web-footed.’” 

In the midst of the laugh that followed, a launch 
whistled from down the canal. 

“There’s Mulcahy now. Hurry, Ned. Go 
down to Grafton and send your telegram to 
head-quarters. Good-by, folks! Come over to 
the martin-box to-night and we’ll hold one last 
celebration. ” 

Sally Lou tossed her baby to her shoulder. 
Away she sped beside her husband. Marian 
looked after the gay, hurrying figures. Then, 
still bewildered, she turned to Roderick. 

“Well! What will happen next! Ned and 
Sally Lou ordered to Virginia; you promoted — 
it takes my breath away! But, Rod!” Her 
voice rose with a startled note. She looked up 
keenly at her brother’s grave face. “You — you 
dear, cold-blooded old slow-coach! How can you 
look so pensive and perplexed? Of all the splen- 
did, splendid news! How could you keep still 
and not tell the Burfords? How can you keep still 


PARTNERS AND VICTORIES 233 


now? If I wasn’t so tired, I’d dance a jig right 
here on your desk!” 

“I ought to be dancing jigs myself,” Roderick 
answered. “I don’t half deserve this magnificent 
chance, I know that. But I — I don’t know what 
to say. I’m facing a dead wall. ” 

“Rod, what do you mean? Of course you will 
accept this promotion. You must. There can’t 
be any question!” Marian was on her knees by 
his chair now, clasping his cold hands in her own. 
Her voice rang sharp with angry affection. “Don’t 
halt and fumble so, brother! Don’t you remem- 
ber, three months ago, how you fretted and hesi- 
tated about taking the position that you are hold- 
ing to-day? See how you have succeeded in it! 
Yet look at you! To-day you are wavering 
and boggling and hanging back, just as you did 
then.” 

“I’m hanging back, yes. But not for the same 
reason. ” Roderick looked down at her with dark, 
troubled eyes. “That time, I hesitated to accept 
on your account. This time, I’m hesitating on my 
own. ” 

“Why, Roderick Hallowell ! You are not afraid 


234 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


of hard work, nor of taking chances, either. Rod, 
tell me this minute. Are you ill? What is it, 
dear?” 

“Nonsense. I’m perfectly well. But I am 
tired out. I don’t know how to tell you what I 
mean. So tired that I dread the mere thought of 
going on a new contract, and taking charge of a 
new crew, and breaking myself in to a new piece 
of work. Yes, it does sound cowardly. But I 
cannot see my way clear. I don’t believe I dare 
take it up. ” 

Marian looked at him closely. 

“Sleep on this, Rod. A night’s rest will give 
you a different light on the matter. ” 

“A night’s rest won’t make any difference in 
the facts, Sis. The position is too complicated 
for a greenhorn like me. I believe I could assem- 
ble the plant, all right. And I think I could handle 
the laborers. But the endless outside detail is 
what I’m afraid of. That, and the responsibility, 
too. For instance, on a contract like this one in 
Iowa, the engineers must act as paymasters, each 
for his division. That means, reckon the men’s 
time daily; make out their checks; handle their 



MARIAN WAS ON HER KNEES BY HIS CHAIR, CLASPING HIS COLD HANDS IN HER OWN 































* 





















































PARTNERS AND VICTORIES 235 

wages for them; and so on. Then there are my 
tabulated reports for the head office. Then my 
supplies. You have seen with your own eyes 
how much time and work just the buying of coal 
and machinery can demand. Then there would 
be a thousand smaller matters to look after. Tak- 
ing it all in all, I don’t want to make a try at this 
offer, then fail. So the sensible thing to do is, 
meekly to ask the company for a less impressive 
post. ” 

“All that you would need for the extra work that 
you describe would be a competent book-keeper, 
Rod. ” 

“Exactly!” Rod laughed shortly. “But a 
‘ competent ’ book-keeper is the last employe that 
one can find for such hard, isolated work as this. 
What I need is not just a man to add columns for 
me. I need another brain, an extra pair of hands. 
I need the sort of first-aid that you have been giv- 
ing me all these weeks, Sis. That’s the sort of 
help that you can’t buy for love nor money. 
That’s all.” 

Marian studied her brother’s face. When she 
spoke, her voice was very gentle and low. 


236 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


“All right, Rod. Telegraph head-quarters that 
you will accept. ” 

“Why?” 

“Because — I am going to take that position as 
book-keeper. There, now!” 

Roderick sat up with some vehemence. 

“Marian Hallowell, I think I see myself letting 
you do any more of my work. You’re going back 
to college next week, for commencement. Then 
you may come West again, if you’re determined to 
stay somewhere near me. I’m mighty glad to have 
you within reach, I must admit that. But you 
are not to live down in the woods any longer. 
And not another stroke of my work shall you do. ” 

“Why not? Am I such a poor stenographer?” 

Roderick laughed at her injured tone. Pride 
and affection mingled in that laugh. 

“You have been invaluable, Sis. You know 
that perfectly well. I’d never have pulled through 
this month without you. You have been of more 
real use than any three ordinary stenographers 
rolled together. For you have used your own 
brains and will and courage. You have not stood 
gracefully by and waited for orders. You have 


PARTNERS AND VICTORIES 237 

marched right on, and you have done a man’s 
work straight through. But our long pull is over 
now. And you are well and strong again, I’m 
thankful to say. So back to the East you go, 
old lady. No more contract jobs for you. ” 

Marian’s eyes narrowed ominously. Deliber- 
ately she seated herself on the arm of her brother’s 
chair. Gently but firmly she seized him by both 
ears. 

“Now, Roderick Hallowell, listen to me. Three 
months ago the company offered you this posi- 
tion. I wanted you to accept it. But, of all 
things, I did not want to go West with you. I 
teased and coaxed and whined. Much good my 
whining did me. For you just set that Rock-o’- 
Gibraltar chin of yours, and took me firmly by 
the collar and marched me along. 

“Now, Roderick Hallo well, look at me!” 

Chuckling and shamefaced, Roderick struggled 
to turn his face away; but Marian’s fingers gripped 
mercilessly tight. 

“Look at me, I say. Answer. Didn’t you 
bully me into giving up to your wishes, by threat- 
ening to refuse this position unless I’d come West 


238 THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


with you? Didn’t you drag me out here willy- 
nilly? Very well. You have had your way. You 
have brought me here, and — you can't send me 
back. There now.” 

“ Marian, this is not fair.” Roderick freed one 
ear and looked sternly at his sister. “You must 
finish your education. I have no right to keep 
you trailing around the country with me, wasting 
your time and cutting you off from your friends 
and denying you any home comfort. You shall 

not sacrifice yourself ” 

“Sacrifice myself, indeed!” Marian took a 
fresh grip. “All I ask is to stay with you until 
next February. Then I’ll go back and take up 
my college work at the exact point where I laid it 
down. I cannot graduate with my class, no matter 
how hard I try. My illness last winter took too 
much time. So I may as well join the class fol- 
lowing, at mid-years’. In the mean time, we will 
have eight splendid months together. No, I have 
waked up, Rod. You can’t hush me off to my 
selfish doze again. ” 

“But, Marian, I can’t possibly permit ” 

“Yes, you can. And you will. As to home 


PARTNERS AND VICTORIES 


239 


comforts — isn’t it home, wherever we two are to- 
gether? As to being cut off from my friends — 
aren’t you the best chum I ever had? How 
do you suppose I like being cut off from you, 
brother?” 

Rod did not answer. At last he looked up. 
The sober gratitude in his eyes brought an an- 
swering radiance to Marian’s own. 

“I give up, Sis. You shall stay with me for 
the summer, anyway. Then we’ll see. Now run 
away, you blessed old partner!” His big hands 
shut on her shoulders with an eloquent grip. “ I’m 
going to write to head-quarters and accept that 
position before I have time to turn coward again 
and change my mind.” 

Marian gave him a vigorous hug of satisfaction, 
and ran away. Letter in hand, Roderick went to 
his desk. 

Carefully he set down his formal, courteous ac- 
ceptance. He read the finished letter with critical 
care. Something was lacking. Yet he had taken 
all possible pains. What more could his reply 
need? 

Suddenly his face brightened. He took up his 


2 4 o THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP 


pen. Slowly and carefully he added a final par- 
agraph : 

“In accepting this promotion, I wish to do so 
with the understanding that my sister, Miss Hal- 
lowell, who has acted as my assistant during the 
past month, shall continue to hold that position 
under the new contract. As her work is to be 
counted as a part of my own, I will request that 
my quarterly checks shall be made out, not to 
R. T. Hallowell, but to ‘Hallowed & Hallowed, ’ 
as the salary is to be drawn by us on a basis of 
equal partnership. ” 

He put down the finished sheet. His boyish 
face lighted with a slow, triumphant glow. He 
looked out across the gray wet country, the fog- 
banked river. To his eyes the dud scene was 
illumined. For his steady vision could see past 
that gray dreariness, far up the broad high-road 
of work and success that he had now set foot upon. 
These three months of heavy toil had proven him. 
He had seized his fighting chance, and he had 
made good. And now ad the royal chances of his 
profession were waiting at his cad. 


PARTNERS AND VICTORIES 241 


“ Though I never could have put it through 
without Marian, ” he said under his breath. “ My 
splendid, plucky little old Sis! No wonder I made 
good, with such a partner. And from now on she 
shall be my real partner, bless her heart. ‘Hal- 
lowell & Hallowell, ’ now and forever!’’ 


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